Harry Potter and the Power of Paranoia
by arekay
Summary: The events at the end of the Triwizard Tournament have left Harry feeling just a little bit paranoid.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter and the Power of Paranoia

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Note: While this chapter may read like a bashing story in parts, you can assume that all characters, apart from Harry, are as per canon.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry Potter was exceptionally angry. After a particularly difficult year in which he had been forced to participate in the Triwizard tournament and which ended up with him witnessing the death of Cedric Diggory and the rebirth of Voldemort he now found himself back at Privet Drive. Not only was he forced to live once again with the Dursleys but none of his friends were telling him anything. He had been unable to get any information about what was happening in the magical world and it was driving him crazy. The fact that not one of his friends had responded to his requests for information was exceptionally infuriating to the young wizard.

_"We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously… We've been told not to say anything important in case our letters go astray… We're quite busy but I can't give you details here… There's a fair amount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see you… "_

But when were they going to see him? Nobody seemed too bothered with a precise date. Hermione had scribbled "I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon" inside his birthday card, but how soon was soon?

Even Sirius had been absolutely useless. _"I know this must be frustrating for you… Keep your nose clean and everything will be OK… Be careful and don't do anything rash…"_ It was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff.

**~oo00oo~**

He was currently moping around in his room wondering whom he could request to give him some news. Unfortunately for him in his four years at Hogwarts he had yet to make any real friends apart from Ron and Hermione and both of them had already stated they were unable to give him any news. He had gotten so frustrated that he had finally written back and told them that if they weren't going to tell him anything then he didn't see any point in writing to them at all. After that he had refused to send them a single owl. Oh, they had sent a few letters after that, but Harry had not bothered to reply and after seeing that they still weren't giving him any information had started throwing them away unopened.

"To hell with them all," thought Harry, "I should have expected it from Ron after the way he behaved last year, hell he didn't even tell me about the dragon even though he would have found out about it from his brother much before I did, but Hermione, somehow I expected better from her. But then, come to think of it, she's always kept her secrets from me. Funny how she expects me to tell her everything but doesn't bother to reciprocate. She kept the time turner a secret for an entire year, then there was the time she went behind my back to McGonagall over the broom. She even figured out that Remus was a werewolf and never said a word, and this was after the two DADA professors before Lupin had both attacked me. Oh no, why bother to inform Harry about a potentially dangerous DADA professor. It's not like there's any precedent whatsoever for the DADA professor to attack him." Harry was getting angrier as he thought about the actions of the girl that till just a month ago he would have called one of his closest friends.

"Hell, she never even told me she was going to the ball with Krum. Why? I wasn't the one to insult her with a poorly worded invitation to the ball. That was Ron. If she doesn't trust me enough to tell me anything then why on earth should I trust her? And now, once again she's not telling me anything. Guess she's just like the rest of the idiots at Hogwarts, probably doesn't want to have anything to do with me now that Voldemort's back. Forget her. And Sirius, like it would be too much trouble for him to send me some news, no-no, probably too busy doing whatever the hell an escapee from Azkaban does. Forget them all, they don't see the need to tell me anything, well bugger them, I don't need them either. Growing up with the Dursleys I knew I couldn't depend on anyone but myself. I grew up without any friends and family to speak off. I was fine taking care of myself then, I sure as hell don't need anyone now."

Harry racked his brains trying to think of who else he could ask for help. He didn't feel comfortable asking Neville, Seamus or Dean for anything in-spite of sharing a dorm with them for the last 4 years. He cursed himself yet again for spending all off his time with Ron and Hermione instead of cultivating better friendships with the other students at Hogwarts.

He considered contacting Remus for a brief moment but discarded the idea almost as soon as he had it, Remus was a werewolf after all, and Harry knew that he had difficulty holding down a job in the magical world due to his disability, as such he probably wasn't the best source of information Harry figured. On top of that, Remus had never looked him up in all the years he had spent living at Privet Drive. For someone who had claimed to be so close to his parents to never even make a phone call to check on him was bloody inexcusable. For that matter where had he been all of last year? Sirius was on the run and he had still managed to maintain contact. Where had Remus been? The more Harry thought about it the angrier he got. He could almost excuse Dumbledore for never checking up on him. Almost being the operative word. After all apparation and portkeys were both nearly instantaneous, so if travel time wasn't an issue how long would it have really taken to stop by a house and speak to a kid to make sure he's all right. Still, after all Dumbledore had to be a busy man, what with his multiple positions in both the wizengamut, the ICW and Hogwarts, but what excuse did Remus have? Just that he was a werewolf?

Come to think of it, there were a lot of things about Remus that were extremely fishy. Take the events of third year. First of all, until the incident at the Shrieking Shack the man had never mentioned how close he supposedly was to Harry's father. He had, in fact, barely mentioned him at all. Plus he never told anyone that Sirius was an animagus. At that time, Sirius was thought to be a psychotic mass murderer out to kill Harry, and Remus Lupin never told anyone about the one piece of information that could have explained how Sirius was sneaking into the school. Why?

All he had given was some kind of piss poor excuse that he had not wanted to disappoint Dumbledore. Wasn't Harry's life and safety more important than disappointing Dumbledore? Obviously not to Lupin.

Then the man very conveniently forgot to take his potion at the worst time possible. He was in a school full of children and he forgot to take his Wolfsbane potion. Either he was incredibly stupid, which Harry knew he was not, or there was something more sinister at work. Suppose, just suppose that he had known about Pettigrew all along. Not only known, but suppose he was working with Pettigrew and Voldemort. Pretending that he had forgotten his Wolfsbane had certainly provided the perfect distraction for Pettigrew to escape.

Snape had been there as well. Harry knew Snape had been a Death Eater. As such he should have known that Pettigrew and not Sirius was the traitor. Yet he had kept quiet all this time. Harry thought back to what had happened when Snape had shown up in the Shrieking Shack.

**Snape was slightly breathless, but his face was full of suppressed triumph. "You're wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here?" he said, his eyes glittering. "I've just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along. And very lucky I did... lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight."****

Had that been true? Had Remus forgotten his Potion? Or had Snape been giving Remus a hint? When Snape told Remus that he forgot to take his potion, had he really been ordering Remus to pretend that he had not taken it?

Harry was appalled. "Could it be true?" he wondered. "Was Remus not what he seemed?" Even if it wasn't and Remus was not a traitor - According to Sirius's story his parents had not trusted anyone else with the knowledge that Pettigrew and not Sirius was the secret keeper. That certainly indicated that not only did they not trust Remus, BUT it also meant that they had clearly not trusted Dumbledore either. If his parents had not seen fit to trust Remus and Dumbledore, why on earth should he? After all they had known the two men far better than he. True, Sirius had explained that they had been wrong not to trust Remus, but could he really believe that? No, he could not afford to. After all, it probably was some sort of a logical fallacy to assume that Remus was innocent just because Pettigrew turned out to be a spy. What, after all, would have stopped Voldemort from having more than one spy? Nothing!

Harry wondered what would have happened that night if he had not stopped Sirius from killing Pettigrew. Would Remus have turned his wand on Sirius at the last moment? Probably! He had been kicking himself for saving Pettigrew as the man had escaped just moments later when Lupin transformed, but now it looked like he had actually saved Sirius from dying at Lupin's hands.

Wait, hadn't Dumbledore sent Sirius to live with Remus at the end of last year? That meant that he couldn't contact Sirius at all. Sirius trusted Remus and that meant that anything told to Sirius would be as good as told to Remus. So that meant he couldn't tell Sirius anything either even if he was talking to him, which in any case Harry was in no mood to do at the current time.

**~oo00oo~**

"I wish I could get a hold of the newspapers at least," thought Harry, wishing yet again that he had had the foresight to arrange for a subscription. * As things stood the only place he knew of to get a hold of a copy was Diagon Alley and he was stuck at Privet Drive totally unable to go there.

Suddenly an unlikely name popped into his head - "Dobby, Dobby could get me a copy, after all he was willing to help me out with the gillyweed during the competion, I hope he's still willing to help out."

He quickly scribbled a note on a spare bit of parchment and let Hedwig out of her cage.

"Hi girl, could you please take this to Dobby."

"Master Harry Potter Sir called for Dobby," shouted a elf as he suddenly appeared at Harry's side causing Harry to fall over in shock.

"Dobby," said Harry, "How did you get here? I was just about to send you an owl."

"Master Harry Potter does not need to send Dobby an owl, Master Harry Potter Sir simply needs to call Dobby and Dobby will come."

"Really, that's great," said Harry. "Dobby I need some help and was hoping you could help me out."

"Of course, Dobby is always very happy to help out the great Harry Potter," said Dobby almost hyperventilating in his eagerness to serve his favorite wizard.

"Thanks Dobby, I really appreciate it. Now I've been stuck here without any news since the beginning of summer and I really need to find out what's happening. Do you think you'd be able to go to Diagon Alley and fetch me some newspapers?"

"Yes, Harry Potter sir, Dobby would be happy to go get you as many newspapers as you want," said Dobby popping away immediately.

"Damn, he didn't even wait for me to give him some money," thought Harry. "Oh well, I can always pay him once he gets back."

Five minutes later Dobby was back, his diminutive body dwarfed by a large pile of newspapers.

"Here you go Master Harry Potter Sir, Dobby do be getting you all the newspapers printed since the beginning of summer."

"Wow Dobby, that's way more than I was expecting," said Harry in shock. "I wish I'd thought of contacting you earlier, this is exactly what I need. How much do I owe you?"

"Oh no, Harry Potter Sir, Dobby is owing Harry Potter Sir for freeing him from wicked master, Dobby want to help you."

"Thanks Dobby, but I can't let you spend your money on me, I insist on paying you back. And no I won't hear another word about it, now how much did you spend."

"Dobby spent 5 Sickles and 4 knuts," said Dobby in a sulky voice.

"Here's 5 Galleons Dobby, could you keep the change in case I need you to fetch me something else?"

"Dobby would be happy to fetch anything that Harry Potter wants."

With that Harry hunkered down and began to read the papers from cover to cover. It was not long before he had to stop due to the increasing amount of rage he was feeling at the contents of the newspapers. He quickly skimmed through the rest of the papers and found that the rest of them were the same. He was being portrayed as a delusional attention seeking brat in more articles than he wanted to count.

"I don't believe this, Dobby," said Harry. "I mean, I knew Fudge didn't want to believe that Voldemort is back, but this is ridiculous. He's obviously behind this - this abomination. What is he thinking? Is he insane? It's one thing not to believe me, but this... What sense does it make for him to attack me this way? He can't be that certain that I'm wrong. Can he? Any sensible person would at least allow for the possibility that I was right and investigate what I said about Voldemort being back. This attack on me makes no sense at all."

Suddenly with a dawning sense of horror, Harry came to the only conclusion that the information he possessed allowed him.

"He's in league with Voldemort," whispered Harry. "That's the only way this would make any sense. Obviously Voldemort's not ready to announce his return, and is using Fudge and the Prophet to discredit me so that no one will believe me when I say he's back."

"This changes everything," thought Harry, furiously pacing within the confines of the smallest bedroom at Privet Drive.

"Obviously I can't rely on anyone else to protect me from Voldemort, and if the last 4 years are anything to go by, he's going to be coming for me sooner rather than later. No place is safe. If Fudge is in his pocket how hard would it be for him to find out where I live?" thought Harry with an increasing sense of horror and fear.

"He's more than proven himself of being able to attack me at Hogwarts, hell the bugger waltzed in there right under Dumbledore's nose back in first year. Last year Barty Crouch Jr. was there the entire year without anyone being the wiser. God alone knows how many years Peter Pettigrew was hiding there as well. Death Eaters have proven themselves to be able to move freely in and out of Hogwarts and Dumbledores too bloody incompetent to stop them. Lucius Malfoy could walk in and Avada Kedavra me in the great hall at breakfast and Dumbledore would probably have been the one to happily invite him in - the incompetent old goat. And Snape - everyone knows he used to be a Death Eater, and yet he's still allowed to teach us even with his blatant favouritism and total inability to teach. What's to stop him from arranging a little potions accident? God knows there have been more than enough of them in his class. Come to think of it when Voldemort called the Death Eaters to the cemetery Snape must have been called as well. He could have informed Dumbledore immediately but Dumbledore didn't know that anything had happened until I got back to Hogwarts with Cedric's body. If he had told him, then they could have come to the cemetery and at least have prevented Voldemort from using the cruciatus on me and forcing me to duel him. That's one more piece of evidence that suggests that Snape is still a Death Eater. There's no way I can go back to Hogwarts. Safest place in Britain my ass," thought Harry thinking back to how Hogwarts had once been described to him by Hagrid.

"What do I do then? I can't stay here; I can't go back to Hogwarts. What do I do?" thought Harry as he threw himself heavily onto his bed.

After half an hour of a monumental sulk session in which Harry felt thoroughly sorry for himself, he finally roused himself and started thinking about his next step. He knew he couldn't continue to live at Privet Drive. Since he believed the Ministry to now be completely in Voldemort's pocket it stood to reason that Voldemort would find it only to easy to find out his location from them. He didn't want to go to the Burrow as he refused to trust Ron and by extension Ron's family, no matter how much he liked them. He didn't know where Hermione lived and after her refusal to communicate with him, really didn't want to bother with her either. Sirius was out of the question as he was supposed to be with Lupin. He refused to even consider going to Dumbledore for help, thinking back to all the times that Dumbledore had failed him. That left him without anyone he could go and stay with. This led him to a rather horrible realisation.

"I have to find a way to stay on my own, far away from anyplace that Voldemort can get to."

He considered his options, thanks to his parents, he had a considerable amount of galleons at his disposal, however he was unable to access them while he was stuck at Privet Drive. The main obstacle was that he was still underage and this severely limited his options.

"I could just run away and find a place to stay on my own, but what if they find me; they'll just send me back here. So what I need to do is figure out a way so that they'll never be able to send me back or even better find me."

He briefly contemplated blowing the house up and faking his own death. "Shouldn't be that hard to do" he thought. "Wait till everyone's out of the house, sever the gas line, leave a candle burning somewhere and when the house fills with gas - BOOM. No more house, everyone thinks I'm dead, Voldemort stops coming from me, and I can finally live life on my own terms."

He spent a few blissful minutes imagining the faces of the Dursleys when they came back to their home to find it nothing but a smoking hole in the ground. "Serve them right, treating me the way they do. Would do them good to rough it for a while. He he he."

Unfortunately he soon found several flaws with the plan. "What if Petunia or Dudley came back home early? I don't know how long it'll take for the house to blow up after all, could take hours for the gas to build up. Even if it blows up correctly, they could find out I've taken money from my vault, then they'll probably get suspicious. Probably toss me in Azkaban as well. I'll have to come up with a better plan. Pity, I really - really wanted to blow up this damn house."

The faintest outline of a plan glimmering in his mind he called out to Dobby. "Dobby if I give you my key - can you make a withdrawal from Gringotts for me?"

"Of course Master Harry, Dobby be fetching things from Gringotts all the time for bad former master."

"Excellent, so could you just hop over to Gringotts, get some money - say a hundred galleons, then go over to Flourish and Bott's. Tell them to give you any book that covers American and European wizard towns, settlements or places like Diagon Alley. They probably have something in the travel section. Make sure you don't let on that you're buying it for me okay."

"Of course Harry Potter Sir, Dobby be doing that right away," said Dobby as he vanished with a cracking sound.

**~oo00oo~**

The next morning Harry was poring over the guidebooks that Dobby had heard from him. Just then he heard a loud, echoing crack which broke the sleepy silence just like a gunshot. Harry had become very familiar with that sound. It was exactly the same sound that Dobby made when he was apparating. He would have assumed it was Dobby, but Dobby was even now pottering around Harry's room putting stuff away and cleaning up. This meant that it had to be another wizard who was apparating close by. Harry wondered who it could be, when he felt a chill run down his spine. It could not be any of the people he knew, since they would surely have informed him before coming over and he hadn't received any letters in days. That left him with only one conclusion -

The Death Eaters had come for him.

* * *

**~oo00oo~**

*Yes in canon Harry was being delivered the Daily Prophet, but at the same time we are expected to believe that he somehow missed the fact that it had been slandering him. For someone who was so desperate for news that he hid outside the window so that he could listen to it on television, it strikes me as a bit unbelievable that he never actually read the paper except for the headlines.

**Excerpt from Prisoner of Azkaban


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Harry stared out of his window. His heart was hammering in his chest. Moments ago he had heard the distinctive crack of somebody apparating. However he could not see anybody on the street at all. This did not mean that nobody was there however. He himself had an invisibility cloak so it was obvious that whoever was out there could also be invisible. There was an invisible Death Eater somewhere out there, watching him, waiting for him to step out of the house, waiting for an opportunity to kill him. He had heard only one crack, did that mean there was only one Death Eater? Could multiple Death Eaters have apparated together? He had no idea. He wished he had a way to see through invisibility cloaks. Why hadn't he ever asked Dumbledore how it could be done. He knew Moody's eye could see through cloaks. Damn it, he should have looked up methods on detecting invisibility cloaks. Okay, he thought, there's at least one invisible Death Eater out there. He could be an assassin waiting for me to step out of the wards that Dumbledore told me were around Privet Drive. Or ... he might just be a scout checking out the protections before coming back with a full Death Eater assault team. First things first, he thought, I need to be ready to move quickly. He rushed to his trunk and dug out his own invisibility cloak. He looked at his trunk, filled with school uniforms and books. He would have to leave it all behind. Pity... or maybe not. He turned to Dobby.

"Dobby, do you know how to make a bag bigger on the inside? I saw this trunk last year that had a whole room inside it. Could you make a normal bag do something like that?"

"House elves be doing that all the time Master Harry Potter Sir. We often need to do it for shopping," said Dobby.

"Excellent, so we can just take one of Dudley's backpacks and... no that wouldn't work... I'd get a warning from the Ministry for underage magic... Since Voldemort owns the bloody ministry, that will just give them an excuse..." he trailed off.

"No Harry Potter sir, No. Dobby can do magic here without setting off the Ministry's underage trackers. Last time Dobby made it look like Harry Potter was doing the magic. Bad Dobby, Bad Dobby," said Dobby, looking like he was about to start ironing his ears any second.

"Great," said Harry, as he decided to ignore Dobby's distress for now. He raced to Dudley's room. Luckily his whale of a cousin was not there. He rooted around frantically in Dudley's closet before he found what he was looking for - a backpack. It looked like Dudley had hardly used it. He grabbed it and raced back to his room.

"Dobby... Dobby... Stop twisting your ears and listen to me. This is important."

Dobby stopped pulling at his ears and turned worshipful eyes upon Harry.

"Dobby, I need you to make the inside of this bag bigger. Then I need you to pack up everything from my trunk and whatever is in my closet as well. Once you've done that, stay in the room and don't come out until I call you. Oh, and stay out of sight. If anyone but me enters the room, I want you to get away to someplace safe," ordered Harry.

He put on his cloak and raced downstairs. The first thing to do, he reasoned, is to see if I can figure out if there's really someone out there or not. If he used the back door hopefully nobody would notice the door opening and closing. He quietly sneaked out the back. It was the hottest day of the summer so far and a drowsy silence lay over the large square houses of Privet Drive. Cars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing - for the use of hosepipes had been banned due to drought. Deprived of their usual car-washing and lawn-mowing pursuits, the inhabitants of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting in a nonexistent breeze. Harry stood behind a large hydrangea bush and surveyed Privet Drive. It appeared to be deserted. Had he been jumping at nothing? He tucked his cloak tightly around himself and started a slow circuit of the house, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He was moving extremely carefully, making sure that he did not make any noise whatsoever. As he passed by the bushes nearest the street he smelled something. Yes, there was definitely a strong smell of alcohol and tobacco. He completed his circuit of the house but did not notice anything else that could be said to be unusual. "Damn," he thought. "There's definitely someone there. Couldn't see him, but I know I could smell him. Now what do I do...?"

Suddenly he was filled with rage. An icy calm, deeply cold rage. A Death Eater was lurking around his relatives house. Waiting to murder him or worse. For all he knew, the minute he stepped out into the street the hidden person would toss a portkey at him, one that would instantly transport him to a dungeon where he could look forward to experiencing Voldemort's cruciatus curse. His brain, that had been utterly focused on escaping now zeroed in on just one thought - Taking the Death Eater out. The question remained - how does one attack an invisible opponent?

Thinking rapidly he moved to a small shed that contained his gardening supplies. He picked up a small shovel and swung it a few times experimentally. Then he grabbed a small spray bottle that he normally used for spraying weed killer. He adjusted the nozzle to the setting at which it would disperse a very fine spray. Quickly filling it with water, he went outside where he checked the direction of the wind. Fortunately for him the breeze was almost non existent. Almost being the operative word. The scant wind that was blowing was almost perfect, blowing gently in the direction he needed. He carefully and silently moved to a position directly in line to where he had smelled the tobacco. He adjusted the folds of his cloak around the bottle so that he could poke the nozzle of it out. Slowly, slowly he depressed the handle of the spray bottle. A fine puff of spray left it to be dispersed slowly in the slight breeze. He watched as the minuscule droplets flew away, floating gently in the wind. He waited a few seconds. A few tense long seconds. Had the Death Eater noticed the sudden appearance of a spray of water from what would have appeared to be thin air. Since nothing happened, he moved slightly to his left and sprayed again, and then once more, he let out a final spritz of water.

Dropping the sprayer into the bushes, he moved silently back towards the front of the house. He moved silently. He was almost there, almost at the very spot where he had smelled the tobacco, when he saw it. There suspended in mid air were a few tiny droplets, shining in the afternoon sun.

He moved closer, closer and then he swung the shovel with all his might right at where he could see the infinitesimal drops of water. He connected with a jarring thump that almost tore the shovel from his grasp. The air in front of him rippled suddenly. He swung the shovel again, and the slight distortion in the air went down with a loud thump. He quickly reached out, out towards the rippling air. His fingers found the edges of something, something that felt like cloth. He grabbed it and pulled it aside to find an unconscious man bleeding from the head.

There was a strong smell of mingled drink and stale tobacco filling the air as Harry looked at the squat, unshaven man in a tattered overcoat. He had short bandy legs, long straggly ginger hair and bloodshot baggy eyes that were rolled up in his head. Harry had never met anyone who looked quite so disreputable.

"Definitely a Death Eater," he said to himself, "looks like a low level thug." He quickly covered the smelly man with the silvery folds of the invisibility cloak. He didn't need any of the Dursley's neighbours interfering after all.

"Hope, no one saw the shovel," he thought worriedly. It would have looked quite odd to any observer he thought. A shovel suddenly appearing in mid-air, briefly swinging, before disappearing again.

The next few minutes very extremely nerve wracking, he had to work very carefully. To make sure that both of them were covered by their respective invisibility cloaks as he quickly stripped the man of his wand and coat. He pocketed the wand and then used the coat to tie the man's arms behind his back. He untied the man's belt as well and used that to tie him up as securely as he could. With every passing minute he expected more Death Eaters to come to the rescue of their fallen comrade.

He wondered what he should do with the unconscious man. If the wards around his house were supposed to keep out Death Eaters then he didn't want to drag him inside the house. What would happen if he dragged the man inside and then the man woke up? No, better to keep him outside the house. His hand tightened around the shovel. Could he? Did he want to take that single irrevocable step. It would be the safest solution. A way to make sure that this Death Eater could never attack him. All he needed to do was swing the shovel a few more times. His fingers for starting to ache from his death grip upon the shovel before he dropped it. No, he would not do that. He would not murder someone in cold blood. He had incapacitated and disarmed the man. That would have to do for now. He tucked the folds of the cloak securely around his prisoner and started dragging the man down the street.

Five minutes later, his muscles were screaming from the effort but he had managed to shove the man under the bushes surrounding a property a few houses down from the Dursley's.

He ran back to Number Four. Should he send an owl to Dumbledore? No, he had no time for that. He needed to move now. More Death Eaters could appear at any moment. He raced into the house, where he found his Aunt Petunia sitting in front of the television. He froze at the sight of her. What was he supposed to do about his relatives? He could not leave them to the Death Eaters, but they were not likely to listen to him. Still, he had to try. He ripped off the invisibility cloak and went to talk to his aunt.

"Aunt Petunia, you're in danger," he said, without any preamble.

His aunt let out a tiny shriek at the sudden appearance of her nephew.

"What nonsense are you talking about now, boy? How did you suddenly pop up like that? I told you I won't have any of your ... your freakishness in my house," she shrieked.

"Listen to me," screamed Harry, shocking his aunt into silence. "I just caught a Death eater outside the house. More of them will probably turn up any minute. I'm getting out of here and I suggest you do the same."

"Death Eater... But... But... your freakish headmaster... he said we'd be safe if we took you in... He said we'd be protected," she shouted right back.

Harry was barely paying any attention as his aunt babbled away. He strode towards the windows by the front door and peeked out through a crack in the curtains. Good, nothing seemed to have happened yet. The street was still deserted.

"Look," he said, turning to his aunt. "You know about the wizard who killed my parents. Don't deny it, I know you do. He's back and he wants to kill me. I just found one of his men outside and I bet that more of them are on their way. Now you can ignore me but I suggest you pack up and leave immediately. Call Vernon and meet him at work. Don't come back to this house. They'll be watching."

"What about Dudley?" whimpered his aunt, as she trembled in fear. "He's gone out for tea with his friends."

"Tea, right," snorted Harry. "Dudley is probably terrorising the neighbourhood kids in the park. If you drive by there you'll probably spot him. If not, just pick him up from wherever he's supposed to be having tea. I'm leaving as soon as I can grab my things."

Harry raced up the stairs, leaving behind his shocked aunt. He didn't have any more time to waste on her. The Death Eaters were after him, not her. Once he got away, they would, hopefully, have no reason to bother her. He had to get out of Little Whinging, now. He rushed into his room, where he found a nervous Dobby waiting for him.

"Got everything Dobby?" he asked. "Great! Grab the backpack and get under this cloak with me, we're leaving now."

He looked frantically around the room. Where was Hedwig? He had to take her with him.

"Where's Hedwig, Dobby?" he asked.

"Dobby put Harry Potter's owl to sleep and put her in Harry Potter's bag," said Dobby.

"Err..." said a flummoxed Harry. "You packed her in my backpack? Will she be okay? She won't suffocate or anything, will she?"

"No Master Harry, Dobby made sure that Harry Potter's owl is perfectly safe," answered Dobby.

Two minutes later Harry was striding away from No 4 Privet Drive, all his belongings secreted inside a backpack that was slung over his shoulder. Dobby trotted at his side.

Two minutes after that, the adrenalin was finally beginning to wear off and Harry finally realised something rather important - He had no idea where he was going.

**~oo00oo~**

Albus Dumbledore collapsed into his chair in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He had had a tiring day, spending most of it studying and shoring up the existing wards at Number Twelve Grimauld Place. He wanted to ensure that Harry would be absolutely safe after he moved him there. Poor boy, he thought, it must be so difficult to live in the muggle world. Not being able to do magic at all. Why the very thought was enough to make you nauseous. No wonder the dear sweet boy was always so eager to leave every summer. He hoped that Harry was recovering from his ordeal at the hands of Voldemort. Well, he had done what he could to make the rest of the summer pleasant for Harry. Not the least of which was persuading the Weasleys to move into Grimauld Place with Sirius. No doubt a few weeks of Molly Weasley's nurturing would be good for the boy. He wanted to make sure that Harry would have his friends around him. He would need their support more than ever now that Voldemort was back. Thank Merlin that the Weasleys had been willing. He didn't know he could have handled it if they had been more like the Grangers. Miss Granger, loyal friend that she was, had been more than willing to come and live at Grimauld Place, however persuading her parents to let her leave for the summer had not been easy. No, not easy at all, he thought, thinking back to how he had been forced to use all his charisma and powers of persuasion on Hermione's parents. They had not liked the thought of their only daughter leaving their house so soon after her return from school. Still, the time he spent convincing them was worth it, he thought. Harry needed his best friends with him in this difficult time and the least that he could do was ensure that they would get to spend some of the summer together. Which reminded him, he would soon have to go look at the protections at Privet Drive, to see if the blood wards had recharged sufficiently. He had wanted to move Harry to Grimauld a week ago, but he had not judged it safe enough. Harry needed to spend more time with his Mother's closest relative. He had also needed additional time to go over the wards at Grimauld. If it had just been Sirius living there, he could have left it with the Fidelius, but he was not willing to take any chances with Harry.

His brow furrowed in thought - poor Harry, knowing him as well as he did, he knew the boy would be frustrated at not being told anything. Unfortunately, he had yet to determine the full extent of Harry's link with Voldemort. That there was a link was undeniable, Harry's dreams proved that, however the question of the effect Voldemort's resurrection ritual had on the link still remained to be seen. It was quite possible that the blood that Voldemort had stolen from Harry to use in the ritual had strengthened the link immeasurably. Until he better understood the link between the two he could not afford to tell Harry anything. If he did so and Voldemort gained full access to Harry's mind, the effects could be disastrous. Thank Merlin, he had never informed Harry of the prophecy. Full knowledge of the prophecy was one of the few cards he still held. If Voldemort could simply read that information from Harry's mind that would change the game completely. As it was, his current plans centred around the fact that he was certain that sooner or later Voldemort had to break into the Hall of Prophecy. With a little bit of luck, he could use that to finally make Voldemort's resurrection public in a manner that even Fudge would not be able to deny.

Unfortunately he did not have any reliable method of determining the full extent of the link between Harry and Tom. The only way that he could think of was for an expert Legilimens to practise Legilimency on Harry to see if they could analyse the link. However, that was a method he was reluctant to subject Harry to. Not unless he was certain that he had no other choice. Convincing Harry to let someone read his mind was also problematic. Especially as he could not just come out and be straight with the boy. Chicken and egg he thought. He could not tell Harry anything until he had a better analysis of the link and he could not get a better analysis of the link without giving Harry more information. So if it became necessary, he would have to come up with some excuse for the boy to allow a legilimens access to his mind. He hoped desperately that it would not come to that.

He sighed, until he knew more about the link, not only could he not give Harry any sensitive information, he would also have to avoid the boy. The worst case scenario was that Voldemort would use the boy to legilimens the people around him. That meant that he would have to severely limit the time he spent with his favourite student. Pity, he hoped that Harry would eventually understand why he had to be distant from the boy.

"Aah, a lemondrop, that would hit the spot," he thought, as he grabbed one and popped it into his mouth.

Just as he was beginning to relax his floo flared to life with bright green flames and Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice boomed forth.

"Professor, we've got an emergency at Privet Drive. Mundungus was attacked, looked like a bone breaking hex to the head. I've taken him to St. Mungos but the house looks abandoned. I can't see the Dursleys or Potter anywhere."

Dumbledore sprang into action. He immediately moved to his fireplace. "Move aside Kingsley, I'm coming through," he ordered. He tossed some floo powder into the fire and seconds later he was gracefully stepping out of the fire at Mrs Figg's house on Wisteria Walk, where he found a nervous looking Mrs Figg waiting for him along with a tall black wizard in the robes of an auror.

"Tell me everything," he ordered.

"Dung hadn't checked in with me all day so I got worried and contacted Kingsley," said Mrs Figg.

"I immediately went to Privet Drive to look for him. He wasn't there so I cast a revealing spell, just to be sure. I thought he might be sleeping under his invisibility cloak, but the spell showed him to be nowhere near where he was supposed to be. He was knocked out, tied up and hidden under the bushes a few houses down from Number four," added Kingsley.

"And Harry?" asked Dumbledore.

"Didn't see him at all, and the house looked deserted" answered Kingsley.

"Come with me Kingsley, I need to check on the house myself" ordered Dumbledore, as he strode briskly out the front door and headed down the street towards Privet Drive. He was extremely worried. Had Death Eaters managed to penetrate the blood wards? Had Harry and his relatives been kidnapped? Was Harry even now in some Death Eater's dungeon?

Just as they reached number four Privet Drive, he felt a sudden chill, as though he had been doused in icy water.

Something had happened to the night. The star-strewn indigo sky was suddenly pitch black and lightless - the stars, the moon, the misty streetlamps along the street had vanished. The distant rumble of cars and the whisper of trees had gone. The balmy evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total, impenetrable, silent darkness, as though some giant hand had dropped a thick, icy mantle over the entire street, blinding them. He turned his head this way and that, trying to see something, but the darkness pressed on his eyes like a weightless veil.

Dumbledore knew that feeling very well. He shushed Kingsley and listened intently. Then he heard just the thing he had been dreading.

There was something in the street apart from themselves, something that was drawing long, hoarse, rattling breaths. Dumbledore felt a horrible jolt of dread as he stood trembling in the freezing air.

Dementors. Dementors had come to Privet Drive.

**~oo00oo~**

* * *

A/N: As you can see I've changed the timeline a bit. In this one the crack that Harry hears is of Mundungus coming to Privet Drive instead of leaving.

**~oo00oo~**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

**Earlier.**

Harry collapsed on a nearby bench. His hands were trembling now that the adrenalin was wearing off. Had he really done that? Had he really been insane enough to go up against a Death Eater armed with nothing more than a spray bottle and a shovel? What had he been thinking? Damn these Gryffindorish tendencies. Why, oh why did he insist on going off all half cocked at the first sign of danger. It would have been so much smarter to simply walk away from Privet Drive under his invisibility cloak. Anyway, he really should concentrate on the immediate problem. Where was he to go and how was he supposed to get there?

Calling the Knight Bus was an option but not a very good one. He remembered only too well the last time he caught the bus, back in the summer before third year, after the incident of the inflated aunt. Cornelius Fudge had been waiting for him at the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. Clearly that meant that the Ministry had some means of monitoring who was taking the bus at any given moment.

Taking a normal muggle bus was also out of the question. Unfortunately he had absolutely no normal money as the Dursleys had never seen fit to give him an allowance. All the money he had was in Galleons and in the muggle world that was absolutely useless.

That left his broom. He vaguely remembered the direction the twins had flown the car in back in second year. If he got on his broom and flew in that direction he should be able to pick out some landmarks - Eventually.

"Wait a second. Why am I automatically thinking of going to the Burrow? That's the first place the Death Eaters will look for me. What would be the point in going there? For all I know they would insist on sending him right back here to Privet Drive. Well, probably not," he thought. "Not once I tell them about the Death Eater I knocked out." He winced as he imagined Molly Weasley's reaction to that little bit of news.

"Where else can I go?" he thought, rather morosely. "The Weasleys are the only magical family I know. I don't know where Hermione or anyone else live. I don't even know if Dumbledore is still at Hogwarts. It is the summer after all - he might be on holiday. The castle's probably locked up tight and shut down for the summer holidays."

"Damn it, looks like it's going to have to be the Burrow" he thought. He turned to Dobby who was huddled under the cloak with him. "Dobby, I think we should head to the Burrow, that's the Weasleys house. Why don't you pop on ahead and I'll fly up there on my broom? Do you think you'll be able to find the place?"

"Dobby can find the place Harry Potter, but Dobby wonders..."

"Yes, Dobby?" coaxed Harry.

"Why does Harry Potter not ask Dobby to pop him there?"

"You can do that?" asked a surprised Harry. "Why didn't you say anythi...We could have just gone straight there from Privet..."

Harry fumed in silence for a minute. He really hated how little he knew about the magical world outside of school. If only Dumbledore had not placed him with the Dursleys. He just knew that he wouldn't be half as ignorant if he had grown up in a magical environment. However there was no point in griping about the past. The past was over and done with. He would just have to make more of an effort in the future to learn more of the things that everyone else took for granted. Starting off with the full capabilities of house elves.

"Dobby, next time you see me doing something stupid like walking somewhere when you know you can just apparate me... Anyway, just speak up next time will you."

Dobby was nodding his head so fast that it looked like it was about to fall off. "Harry Potter is a great wizard. Dobby did not know that Harry Potter did not realise that Dobby could take him where he wanted to go."

"All right then, lets head to the Burrow," said Harry rather cheerfully. Now that he had some sort of plan to follow he felt a lot better. He would go to the Burrow, eat Mrs Weasley's cooking, play quidditch with the twins and hang out with Ron. Yes, surely he could take some time off to relax. After all the Burrow was sure to be quite safe.

"Dobby cannot go directly to the Burrow, Dobby has never been there before, but Dobby can take Harry Potter near to where he thinks the Burrow is. Then Dobby can find the Burrow."

"Okay then, lets do that then," said Harry. Dobby grabbed Harry's hand and with a loud crack they disappeared from Little Whinging.

**~oo00oo~**

Dumbledore sprang into action the moment he saw the dementors. He instantly snapped his wand and fired out a muggle repelling ward that covered the entire street. This was quickly followed by a notice me not charm. The combination of those two charms would ensure that none of the muggles living on Privet Drive would be able to witness what happened next. A silvery ghost like phoenix sprang forth from his wand and flew straight at the Dementors. It slammed into the Dementor in the place where the heart should have been; it was thrown backwards, weightless as darkness, and as the phoenix charged, the Dementor swooped away, bat-like and defeated. Dumbledore turned to direct his patronus towards the other Dementor only to find a lynx had already thrown it up into the air and, like its fellow, it soared away and was absorbed into the darkness; the lynx cantered to the end of the street and dissolved into silver mist.

Dumbledore turned and nodded to Kingsley whose patronus the lynx had been.

"Nicely done, Kingsley. Stand and keep guard here for a moment. I must check up on the house," he said as he moved towards the front door of number four. A quick unlocking charm and he was letting himself into the house. Instead of searching the house he simply used the Homenum Revelio charm. Unfortunately, it only revealed what he already expected to find after hearing Kingsley's report. Harry Potter's home on Privet Drive was totally deserted. He spent a few minutes analysing the wards.

"Hmm, the wards have not lessened in strength; this means that they cannot have been gone long. Nor could they have been kidnapped. They must have left willingly," he thought with an enormous sense of relief. The worst had obviously not happened.

Harry had not been kidnapped by Death Eaters; he had left the house along with his relatives. He wondered why they would leave. What had happened at Privet Drive? It was all extremely puzzling. Who had attacked Mundungus? Snape would surely have heard if Voldemort had planned an attack on Harry. There was also the fact that if a Death Eater had attacked then it was hardly likely that Mundungus would have been left alive. So if not Death Eaters, then - who could have attacked Mundungus? Did it happen before or after Harry had left?

He moved upstairs, hoping to find a clue to the events that had transpired. He found the master bedroom in a state of utter disarray. It looked like someone had very hastily packed, the wardrobe was hanging open and discarded clothes littered the room. The next room he checked seemed to belong to that of a teenage boy. Was this Harry's room he wondered? No, from all the muggle paraphernalia and the oversize clothes he could see this must be the Dursley boy's room. He frowned at the door of the room next to it. Why would they need to put so many locks on a door? Especially one that was inside the house? Why would they need to have a cat-flap at the bottom of the door? He opened the door to find an utterly bare room with just an old broken down bed and desk in it. He sighed in relief. For a minute there he had assumed the worst of the Dursleys and had been utterly horrified, but this room had clearly never been in use. They probably had used it to keep a pet in at some point and installed the cat-flap so that the dog or cat would have been free to enter and leave the room. It must be some strange custom that muggles followed. There was yet another neatly furnished room further down the corridor. That must have been Harry's room he decided. Odd that it seemed that Harry had packed up all his possessions but it had probably been easier for the boy considering that he lived most of the year at Hogwarts. It would have been easy for him to simply toss his belongings back in his trunk. He snooped around the room, hoping to find something, a note, any scrap that would give him some inkling to what had happened but he could not find anything.

Giving it up for a bad job, he decided he'd just have to ask Harry what had happened, after he used his deluminator to find him. He'd modified his deluminator years ago. Not only was it extremely useful to put out the occasional light but now it had a far more important function - it worked as a homing device for Harry and with it he could find Harry anywhere within Great Britain. Unfortunately when he put his hand into his pocket he found it distressingly empty, except for his ever present packet of lemon drops, and he realised with a sinking heart that he had left his deluminator at Hogwarts. No, he remembered now, he had lent it to Moody to use when he was supposed to pick up Harry.

Bugger, he would have to contact Moody immediately. He needed that deluminator back; Harry had to be found at once. He rushed back downstairs and out into the street pausing only briefly to lock the house up after himself. He was surprised to see that Kingsley had been joined by three men, all in auror robes. Kingsley seemed to be arguing with them.

"What seems to be the problem here?" asked Dumbledore.

Kingsley turned away from the auror he had been berating, who Dumbledore belatedly recognised as John Dawlish. "Well Albus, Dawlish here has been sent by the ministry to destroy Harry Potter's wand. It seems that the Ministry thinks that Mr. Potter somehow managed to perform two simultaneous Patronus Charms and have in their infinite wisdom decided to expel him."

"WHAT?" shouted a shocked Dumbledore. "Have they gone insane over there? Since when do they authorise the snapping of a wand without at least a hearing on the matter?"

Dawlish looked horribly embarrassed and unsure of himself but continued to insist that he had his orders and furthermore insisted that they produce Harry Potter immediately or he would be forced to charge them with obstruction of justice charges.

"Really..." drawled out Dumbledore."Well of course Dawlish, please go ahead and do your duty. I'm sure being known as the man who illegally snapped the wand of the Boy-Who-Lived will do nothing but wonders for your career." His eyes twinkled in amusement as Dawlish paled rather rapidly and looked like he was wishing that he was anywhere but there.

"In any case, Mr. Potter is not here. Now, you can waste your time looking for him, but instead I suggest you accompany me to the Ministry where we will sort this unfortunate misunderstanding out."

John Dawlish agreed only too readily. If Dumbledore wanted to sort this steaming mess of hippogriff crap out then he would only be too happy to let him.

Dumbledore dispelled his muggle repelling and notice me not charms from the street with a quick flick of his wand, turned on the spot and disappeared with a crack. Seconds later the street was once again deserted as the remaining wizards vanished one by one.

**~oo00oo~**

Hermione was bored out of her mind. Hanging around a decrepit old house with the Weasleys was not what she had signed up for. Molly Weasley's insistence on keeping them busy was most annoying. She had not given up her summer vacation to spend it acting as slave labour for a redheaded harridan who had a seemingly endless list of chores as she set them to clean and decontaminate the old house.

Where was Harry? Why hadn't they fetched him yet? She was terribly worried about her best friend and intensely impatient to see him again. She knew, she just knew that the Headmaster's order not to tell him anything was an incredibly bad idea. Unfortunately she had not been able to convince him otherwise. Nor had she been able to dredge up the courage to just disobey him outright. Still, she consoled herself; surely he knew what he was doing. He was Albus Dumbledore after all. She bit her lip in worry and contemplated sending Harry another letter. He had to reply at some point.

She couldn't even focus on the book she had been attempting to read for the past hour and that was almost unprecedented for her.

They had better get Harry from his relatives soon; otherwise she was likely to go absolutely crazy. She was terribly starved for intelligent conversation. The adults refused to discuss anything of importance with them, all Ginny ever wanted to talk about was her crush on Harry and the twins tended to keep to themselves as they worked on pranks. Even Ron was a terrible conversationalist. Since they were not in school they could not talk about their shared classes or school activities and Hermione had discovered that without that they had astonishingly little in common. All the boy seemed to want to talk about was quidditch or food. If she had to listen to one more rant about how the Chudley Cannons were bound to do better this year she would probably either end up killing him or trying to gouge out her own eardrums.

Just then the door slammed open and Ron came barging into the room. "Hermione, hurry up and come with me. Something seems to have happened, the entire orders been turning up in a panic," he whispered.

She jumped out of bed and onto the landing where she found that the Weasley twins, Fred and George, were already hanging over the railing, flesh coloured strings dangling from their hands. She tried to grab one of the extendable ears out of their hands so that she could hear what was happening from herself, but before she could do so, Fred - or was it George, straightened up.

"It's no use," he said. "We barely heard anything before they stopped working. They must have cast an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door."

"Did you hear anything important before that?" she demanded.

"Not much," grimaced Fred. "All I could get was something about Dementors at Privet Drive."

"Dementors," whispered a shocked Hermione. "But...But...What about Harry? Is he okay? Did they say anything about him?"

"No, not that we could hear," answered George.

Hermione snapped. Enough was enough she decided. She marched down the stairs and started hammering on the kitchen door. She would have answers and she would have them now.

Ron ran up behind her and tried to pull her hand away from the door. "Hermione, what are you doing?" he cried.

"I'm trying to find out what has happened to Harry," shrieked Hermione. "You remember him don't you? Harry, about so high…messy black hair…our best friend."

Ron's face turned red. "Hey, I'm really worried about him too you know. I'm the one who came to tell you that something's happened after all, but you can't...can't just barge in there...Mum will go spare...you know that."

Hermione didn't want to listen to reason. She wanted answers and she wanted them now. She yanked her hand out of Ron's grasp and was about to start hammering on the door again when it suddenly opened and she found herself looking straight into the twinkling eyes of Albus Dumbledore. Behind him she could see Molly Weasley who looked like she had been crying and Sirius Black who looked furiously worried and a whole bunch of other people, only some of whom she had met before. All of them were currently staring at her.

"Yes, Miss Granger, whatever can I do for you?" asked the venerable old wizard.

"I-I-I" stammered Hermione, "I just wanted to find out if anything has happened to Harry. Is he okay?"

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry for not realising sooner how distressing this must be for you," answered Dumbledore. "Very well, just this once, you may sit in on a meeting," he said as he ushered her and Ron into the room and made them sit down.

"Must you coddle them, Headmaster?" said Snape, disapproval stamped clearly upon his face. "Surely they can wait until after our meeting to be filled in."

Ron glared at Snape, as usual the Prince of Snarkiness had managed to get under his skin with minimal effort.

"Now Severus, I'm sure they will be no bother. Now as I was saying, before I was interrupted, we have a bit of a crisis on our hands. The full picture of what exactly has occurred is not yet clear but these are the facts as I understand them - Some time earlier today Harry and his relatives left Privet Drive for parts unknown. We do not know yet exactly how it is related but someone also knocked out Mundungus Fletcher and left him tied up under a hedge. He is currently being treated for a rather severe concussion at St. Mungos. Kingsley and I made our way to Privet Drive where we were almost immediately attacked by Dementors. We managed to drive them away of course but..."

"But what about Harry? Where is he? Why aren't you out looking for him?" asked Hermione in a hysterical and strident tone.

"Miss Granger, please do not worry, I will soon track Mr. Potter down. I am simply waiting for Alastor. As soon as he is here I shall be able to locate Mr. Potter without delay. Now...Where was I?" asked Dumbledore.

"Aah yes, as I was saying, the Patronus Charms that Kingsley and I used to drive off the dementors were wrongly attributed to Harry by the Ministry. Cornelius Fudge seems to have rather prematurely seized this as an excuse to expel Harry from Hogwarts."

"He's been expelled?" shouted Sirius. "What the blazes is Fudge up to?"

"How is that even possible?" asked Hermione. "I thought the trace only monitored underage magic. How could they have thought that Harry was the one performing magic? Shouldn't the trace have shown that it was you and Kingsley?"

"Calm down Sirius. Miss Granger, the trace is also set to monitor muggle areas and if magic is detected in an area where an underage student is living then it is assumed that the student is the one performing it. Sirius, I have of course already filed a report that the Patronus Charms were cast by Kingsley and me and as such I was able to have the Ministry's decision immediately overturned. So there is absolutely no need to worry upon that part. Now all we need to do is to wait for Alastor and we shall soon have Harry back with us, absolutely safe and sound. If I'm not mistaken that is probably Alastor at the door right now" said Dumbledore as the doorbell rang.

"Blast," said Sirius exasperatedly. "How many times do I have to tell them not to ring the doorbell?" A horrendous cacophony of screams and threats could be heard from the drawing room.

"Stains, of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth..."

"There you go, they've managed to set her off again," Sirius said as he hurried off to silence his mother's portrait.

Dumbledore hurried to the door. He was impatient to get his hands upon the deluminator. Unfortunately for him, the first person through the door was not Mad-Eye Moody but Arthur Weasley who immediately clutched at his arm.

"Albus, we have a problem, the owl I sent to Harry to let him know that the expulsion order has been overturned came back. It came back with the letter undelivered. Undelivered Albus, undelivered. Why would the owl not be able to find Harry? Something has happened to him. At the very least this means that Harry is out there somewhere thinking that he's been expelled. There's no telling what he might do," said Arthur Weasley.

Dumbledore was barely listening to Mr Weasley, he was much too impatient to get his hands upon the deluminator. He waved off Arthur's concerns. "We shall soon sort all that out Arthur, now if you excuse me I must talk to Alastor," he said as he rushed to meet Moody who had followed Arthur into the house.

Dumbledore pulled Moody to the side and discreetly asked him for his deluminator. He did not want the fact that the deluminator was a tracking device to become common knowledge. Once he had it, he entered one of the side parlours which was thankfully empty and immediately triggered the deluminator.

He sighed in relief as a ball of light shimmered into existence. The deluminator would take a few seconds to get a fix on Harry's position. A few seconds...Just a few seconds...What was wrong with the bloody thing? Had Alastor somehow managed to damage it? He shook it forcefully and tried triggering it again but all that happened was that the ball of light flickered into existence again but still refused to give him a fix on Harry's location.

With a growing sense of dread and disbelief he took out his wand and cast a few diagnostic charms upon the device. His legs went weak with shock when they reported that the device was working perfectly. He had to put out a hand to steady himself.

What had happened? The deluminator should be able to give him an immediate fix on Harry's location. He had tested the charm work extensively. As long as Harry was within Britain the deluminator was capable of finding him. He sat down heavily and put his head in his hands. Was Harry dead? No, that could not be. With a sense of relief he remembered that the blood wards had still been standing around Privet Drive. That meant that Harry could not be dead.

What option did that leave? Could Harry be under a Fidelius Charm? No, that was highly unlikely. The Fidelius was still a rather obscure charm. What was the likelihood that Harry had found someone able to cast it? No, it was quite improbable that Harry was hidden under a Fidelius. So, what could have happened to Harry? The deluminator should be able to find Harry anywhere within Britain...within Britain...within...within...Oh dear God...No...No...This could not be happening.

Harry Potter was no longer anywhere within England, Scotland or Wales.

**~oo00oo~**

It was a highly annoyed Harry that Dobby had apparated into Diagon Alley a few hours earlier. It had taken them hours to find the Burrow, hours of popping all over the Devon countryside, only to eventually discover that the Burrow was locked up tight and abandoned.

"Typical, just typical," fumed Harry. "Every single bloody time I really need Ron, he's not there. Right from first year when he got himself knocked out by the chess pieces. Then in second year he's on the wrong side of the rock slide, and third year when he gets his leg broken and can't come with me to rescue Sirius and let's not even talk about last year. Every bloody single annoying time, without fail. Why on earth do I hang around with someone so totally useless?"

"Dobby does not know Harry Potter sir. Harry Potter is a great wiz..."

"Yeah, yeah," interrupted Harry. "Let's just get some money from Gringotts and get a room at the Leaky Cauldron. Probably not the safest place but we don't really have much of a choice at this point. Do you know if Gringotts will be open at this time?"

"Yes, Harry Potter, Gringotts is always open. Vampires also need to keep their gold in Gringotts."

"Okay, great," said Harry as he continued moving down the alley.

But at that precise moment a screech owl swooped down out of the sky. It soared across the street, dropped the large parchment envelope it was carrying in its beak at Harry's feet, turned gracefully, then zoomed off into the sky again.

Harry picked up the envelope and ripped it open, pulling out the letter inside.

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We have received intelligence that you performed the Patronus Charm at twenty-three minutes past nine this evening in a Muggle-inhabited area._

_The seventy of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ministry representatives will be calling at your place of residence shortly to destroy your wand._

_As you have already received an official warning for a previous offence under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on the twelfth of August._

_Hoping you are well,_

_Yours sincerely,_

_Mafalda Hopkirk_

_Improper Use of Magic Office_

_Ministry of Magic_

Harry read the letter through twice. He could not believe his eyes. What the hell was this? He hadn't been in a Muggle area for hours. Why would he be performing a Patronus Charm anyway? He snorted - Patronus Charm, indeed, couldn't they have come up with something more believable? Why on earth would he ever perform a Patronus Charm at Privet Drive?

He read the letter through again. What the bloody hell was wrong with the Ministry? He knew that expulsion was supposedly the punishment for breaking the Statute of Secrecy, but what the hell was that bit about the disciplinary hearing.

If they'd already expelled him, why would they need to have a disciplinary hearing? Shouldn't expulsion be punishment enough? This looked like not only were they tossing him out of Hogwarts but they also seemed to want to punish him further. Maybe even throw him into Azkaban. His eyes widened in fear.

This was solid undeniable proof - The Ministry was obviously totally under the thrall of Voldemort and was manufacturing a reason to get him expelled from Hogwarts and thrown into Azkaban. It stood to reason that they must have panicked after he escaped from the Death Eater at Privet Drive and this was their next attempt at getting rid of him.

His eyes flickered nervously around the alley. He quickly got his invisibility cloak out, which he had previously put away once he reached the Burrow, and covered himself. He hoped that nobody had seen him. He had to change his plans. Forget about the Leaky Cauldron. He had to get away from Britain immediately. He would go back to his original plan, well truth be told until then it had been little more than a pleasant day-dream, and just leave the country.

"Come on Dobby, I'm going to need your help with a few more things" he said as he scurried towards the goblin run bank. "First, can you fix it so that no owl can find me? I don't want the Ministry to be able to find me by sending me any more owls."

"Yes, Dobby can be doing that. Should Dobby be doing that now?"

"Yes, please go ahead and do that," said Harry. Dobby flicked his fingers and Harry felt a tingle as Dobby's magic settled around him masking his magical signature so that no owl would be able to find him. Miles away an owl that had been heading straight towards him suddenly lost its bearing and flew around confused in circles before it gave up and headed back to its owner.

"Next, we need to empty my vault completely. Do you think you'll be able to fit all the gold from my vault into this backpack? I mean it's already really full, after all you managed to fit everything from my room including my trunk in there..."

"Yes, Harry Potter, Dobby can be doing that easily, there is plenty of place left in Harry Potter's bag," said Dobby.

"Excellent, come on then, let's hurry up. We need to empty my vault and then the two of us are going to head to Heathrow airport."

Ten minutes, several surly goblins and a cart ride later, Harry was watching in astonishment and wonder as all the gold in his vault swirled up into the air and started funnelling into the open mouth of his backpack.

"You know Dobby, you are really one incredibly useful person...err...elf to have around. I don't suppose you'll be willing to come with me and work for me full time? I could pay you just as much as Dumbledore was paying you to work at Hogwarts"

Dobby hopped up and down in excitement. The flying Galleons crashed to the floor as he jumped at Harry in glee. "Master Harry Potter wants Dobby to be his elf and wants to pay him as well. Oh, Dobby is so happy..." and with that the tiny elf burst into tears of utter joy.

Once Harry had settled Dobby down and gotten him to finish emptying the vault into his backpack, they hurried back into the cart. Harry had left out a large bag of galleons which he was clutching in his hands. He would need to convert those into regular muggle money. It was high time he headed to the muggle world. Every minute he spent in the magical world the danger increased. Not only did he have to worry about Death Eaters but now he had the Ministry out to snap his wand as well. He would be leaving as soon as he could figure out how to get on a plane.

**~oo00oo~**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Amsterdam was one hell of a fun city, Harry decided. The two weeks he had spent there so far had been exceedingly pleasant. Decent enough weather, canals everywhere, local food that tended to be heavily fried and breaded and thus utterly irresistible to Harry and a population filled with people who spoke English very fluently as a second language. Unfortunately, he had missed seeing the tulips at Keukenhof, due to it being the wrong time of the year, but the vast plethora of museums more than made up for that. His favourite by far had been the Van Gogh Museum where he had spent hours enthralled by Vincent's masterpieces. Oh, he had not much cared for the Dutch Artist's earlier works; paintings like The Potato Eaters were much too dark and depressing for his taste. The Irises, now that was much more to his taste. The still life of the irises in a vase against a yellow background had to be one of the most spectacular sights the young wizard had ever seen.

It had been quite easy for him to flee Britain. Dobby had offered to pop him over to France. While there was a distance limit to how far the elf could apparate the two of them, Dobby had been quite sure that the short hop across the channel from Dover would pose no difficulty.

Harry had however decided that he wanted to try travelling by plane and so the two of them had used his invisibility cloak and sneaked onto the first plane they found that had empty seats on it. Looking back Harry was quite pleased that he had not been able to board the plane to Berlin. That had been the first plane that was leaving London, but unfortunately it had been quite packed. After that, he had sneaked around looking at passenger lists over the shoulders of airline personnel until he had finally found a flight that had two adjacent empty seats. The seats had even been in business class so Harry had enjoyed a most pleasant flight to Amsterdam. The minute the plane had landed, he had felt an incredible sense of relief. The release of an enormous tension that he had barely realised he was under. Finally he could relax. Surely the Death Eaters would never think of looking for him here.

The only regret that he had about coming to Amsterdam was that he was still too young to legally sample all the delights the city had to offer. He had briefly considered trying to get his hands on some ageing potion but had eventually deemed that too risky. He would have had to find and enter the city's magical district, if it had one, and then find a apothecary to but the ageing potion. Harry did not want to go anywhere where he might be recognised. Even sending Dobby was too risky for him. The elf had belonged to the Malfoys which meant that there were probably many Death Eaters around that would recognise him. All it would take was for one of them to wonder what Malfoys elf was doing in Amsterdam and the trail might lead them right back to Harry. No, he would not be going anywhere near any of the magical districts or areas.

He had no idea if he was as well known in the Netherlands, probably not, he thought, but he had no intention of putting it to the test either.

He had in fact, taken quite a few steps to avoid being recognised. Gone was the distinctive mop of unruly dark hair and his glasses. He was currently sporting a crew cut and brown tinted contact lenses. He had even gotten himself a fake tan and gotten some make up that he dabbed on his forehead each morning. It was surprisingly effective at concealing his scar. All in all he looked remarkably different from the pale young wizard that had fled Privet drive.

"Has it been only two weeks?" he mused. It seemed like a lifetime ago at times. It seemed like ages since he had been able to relax and have fun like this. Truth be told he doubted that he had ever been able to relax like this. At Privet Drive he had always had to deal with the unpleasantness of his relatives and in the magical world it had always felt like he was under constant scrutiny. Even during the good times at the Burrow he had never quite felt truly at ease. There had always been something, like Ginny continuously staring at him and being nervous around him for instance, that had made him uncomfortable and kept him on edge.

He was currently sitting in a small cafe snacking on a plate of bitterballen. Every once in a while a bitterbal seemed to vanish as Dobby who was sitting next to him under his invisibility cloak snacked on them as well. The little elf seemed to be having the time of his life as he invisibly accompanied Harry everywhere.

"Must be quite the change for him," Harry thought. "I doubt the Malfoys ever let him out into the Muggle world."

"So Dobby, what should we do tomorrow," he whispered surreptitiously. "Should we go and see the windmills?"

"Yes, Harry Potter, Dobby is wanting to see the windmills very much."

"Excellent, so that's tomorrow taken care off. What should we do tonight? Should we go and see what's playing at the theatre?"

"Yes, Harry Potter, Dobby loved the last movie with all of the exploding things. Can we see another movie with lots and lots of things going boom. Please, please, please," said the little elf as he bounced up and down in his seat.

Harry grinned widely as he flipped open a newspaper to see what was playing. Who would have ever thought that Dobby would turn out to be such a film buff?

**~oo00oo~**

Dumbledore had not been having half as good a time. The last two weeks had been extraordinarily stressful for him. Harry Potter had disappeared into thin air and no one seemed to know where he had gotten to. It had taken the order the better part of a week just to track down the Dursleys and they hadn't even gone that far. Kingsley had eventually tracked them down to a small hotel in one of those towns with unpronounceable names in Wales. However instead of clearing things up, the Dursleys had only confused matters more.

According to Petunia, Harry had burst into the house and told her that Voldemort was about to attack any minute. He had ordered her to go into hiding before leaving the house moments later.

However, there had been no attack on the house. Apart from the assault on Mundungus there had been absolutely no Death Eater activity at Privet Drive. So why had Harry told his Aunt that Voldemort was about to attack? Had Voldemort sent Harry some sort of a false vision? What could have made Harry run away on his own? Why hadn't he stayed to ensure the safety of his relatives? Could it be that there had been a force of Death Eaters about to attack the house? Had Harry led them away to ensure his family's safety? It was quite conceivable that the boy had witnessed the attack on Mundungus and then decided that the best way to keep his family safe was to make the attackers chase him.

But then, why had Harry not gotten in touch with him? Surely, the boy was aware that he would keep him safe. Why had Harry not sent him an Owl? As far as he knew the boy still had that snowy owl. It had not been left with his relatives, nor had it been left behind at the house. So why had Harry not contacted him?

It was all very worrying. He frowned as he looked at the disassembled components of his deluminator that were currently laid out in neat rows upon his desk. He had a lot of work to do. Harry had always been extraordinarily difficult to keep a track of. While it was true that most tracking charms lost precision the further away the caster was from the target it was still relatively easy to track most people.

Unfortunately, Harry had always been a special case. His mother's protection upon the by had always made most charms fail shortly after they were cast. So years ago, he had obtained a small amount of Harry's blood and incorporated it into a tracking device. This had needed to be tied into a array of runic stones that he had planted all over Britain. His deluminator worked in conjunction with this runic array and as long as Harry was within the magical net created by these stone he was always able to track him to within a few feet.

Now though, his detection array was absolutely useless as Harry was no longer within Britain. That meant that he had to come up with an entirely new way of tracking Harry.

This had been quite difficult even for a wizard of his vast experience.. There were several rituals, of course, that could be used to pinpoint Harry's location using his blood. However, they all suffered from one severe drawback. He would have to use the only sample he had of Harry's blood to power them and the nature of the rituals and charms usually inevitably destroyed the sample. That meant that he would have only one chance if he used such a rituals.

Since Harry had disappeared from England so suddenly, there was no guarantee that he was still not travelling. If he used his only sample in one of those rituals and Harry moved from that location before Dumbledore managed to get there then he would never be able to find him again.

Dumbledore knew that he could not take that chance. That was the reason he was constructing a new homing device. It stood on a small workbench looking for all the world like an oversized compass suspended within a gyroscope. One that had a few too many dials. It was almost completed although it was still open with many large and small gears displayed within it. All it needed was one final component. The one he was currently extracting from his disassembled deluminator.

He sighed tiredly as he picked up a tiny component and peered at it through a large magnifying glass he had floating in the air. He waved his wand once over it and the casing split apart and unfurled like a flower. A tiny vial of crystal was revealed - one that was filled with a dark red almost black substance. Dropping the remains of the casing upon his desk he strode to the workbench where he carefully inserted the vial into a slot deep within the device. With a series of clicks and whirls the vial locked and sunk into the device. Gears shifted as the device closed up with a crisp clicking sound and started to spin. Finally it settled after spinning wildly around on all three axles. Dumbledore peered at the dials displayed upon the face of the device.

The main dial was pointing to the south-east while the other dials were flickering randomly at different markings across the face of the device.

"Hmmm, an error margin of 18.5 percent, signal strength at 36 millifeys. If Harry is somewhere to the South-east, and if the signal strength degrades at a linear rate then...hmmm..."

He strode over to a bookshelf and pulled out a large roll which he opened and kept suspended in mid air. It was a large map of Europe. Conjuring up a protractor and T-Square, he spent the next several moment furiously drawing and measuring lines upon the map. Finally he was done. He tapped furiously at a spot upon the map. How had Harry managed to get there? Why had he gone there? If he had been forced to make a guess, then he would have chosen France or even Bulgaria. After all, Harry had gotten somewhat friendly with the other Triwizard champions. But this? Did Harry know someone who lived in that country? He did not think so.

"Well, it seems that Harry has somehow managed to find his way to the Netherlands. The boy will never cease to amaze me."

Dumbledore sat down behind his desk and started writing out several quick notes.

"Fawkes, could you please deliver these to Remus, Severus and Nymphadora."

As his phoenix flashed away in a burst of flame, Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and relaxed. He would soon have Harry Potter back where he belonged, safe and sound.

**~oo00oo~**

Nymphadora Tonks frowned at the area marked on the map.

"Are you sure you can't narrow this down further Sir? Only, that's an awfully large area to cover. You've got Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam, all within the section marked here."

"Unfortunately it is the best I can do at the current time my dear. I will of course endeavour to get a more precise fix on Harry's whereabouts but that will take time. Time we do not have. Still things are not quite as impossible as they seem at first glance. There are only a few magical settlements within that area. Harry must be in one of those. The largest settlement is in The Hague, it contains their Ministry of Magic and their largest shopping district - their version of our Diagon Alley. That would undoubtedly be the best place to start," said Dumbledore.

"Wouldn't we be able to get a better fix on his position if we took your uhhh...compass with us?" asked Remus, looking at the large homing device that Dumbledore had constructed.

"Perhaps, unfortunately I am still working on it. It is much too fragile to move at the present time. There is also the fact that it is much too risky to carry it out into the field. If it were to be lost or damaged in any way then we would have absolutely no way of tracking Harry," answered Dumbledore.

"I fail to see why you insist on me going along on this wild goose chase," sneered Snape. "Surely, you have someone else who could search for the boy."

"Out of the three of you, it is you who knows Harry best, Severus. Lupin only taught him for a year, you have been his teacher for four years. Who else could I send?"

"Oh, I don't know - Hagrid? Why not McGonagall? She is his head of house after all. How about someone who actually wants to search for the arrogant brat?" said Snape.

"Enough, Severus, Hagrid is far too conspicuous and Minerva is far too busy with her duties as Deputy Headmistress. You will go with Remus and Nymphadora..."

"Don't call me Nymphadora," interrupted Tonks automatically.

Dumbledore grunted with irritation.

"Yes, as I was saying, Severus you are the best person for the job. You will go with Tonks and Remus and you will find Harry and bring him back safe. Is that understood?"

"Of course Headmaster, after all heaven forbid that I should ever get to spend my time doing things I want to do..." muttered Snape. "And how am I supposed to explain my absence to the Dark Lord? I suppose that is my problem as well."

Dumbledore wished he could put his head in his hands. These were the people he had to work with. Why could no one just do what they were told? Why did they all...Unfortunately they were the best that he had at the current time. Sirius could not leave Grimauld Place. Alastor...how he wished he could send Alastor. Unfortunately the man was still recovering from his imprisonment at the hands of Barty Crouch Junior. He could hardly send him traipsing all over Europe.

No, Snape, Tonks and Lupin were his best bet. They would find Harry.

**~oo00oo~**

Nymphadora Tonks was in a hurry. They had gotten into Amsterdam quite late the night before and she had been dead tired. By the time she got up she found that Lupin and Snape had already left for the day, leaving behind a note telling her to meet them at Magischstraat, the magical shopping street in Amsterdam. It had taken her several cups of coffee before she felt ready to face the day.

So far searching for Harry had been quite frustrating. There had been absolutely no trace of him in The Hague. The local magical government had no records of any incoming portkeys or apparatition from Britain during the time period in which Harry had disappeared from England. Nor had they been able to find anyone who had seen him.

She was also quite upset with the two men who had accompanied her. They had not even thought to ask if she knew how to get to Magischstraat. As it was, she was lucky that she had picked up a guidebook before leaving England.

She was waiting to cross the road when she saw him. There he was sitting at a small cafe having a cup of coffee. His hair was shorter than the pictures she had seen of him, but his profile was unmistakable. She couldn't believe her luck. She had done it. She had found Harry Potter. She hurried across the road, dodging a couple of cyclists as she ran. She caught up with him just as he was standing up to leave. She grabbed his arm and spun him around.

"Harry..." she started as she found herself looking into a pair of startled brown eyes - brown, not green. She stared at his unmarked forehead. Oh dear.

"I'm sorry," she said, terribly embarrassed at having grabbed the arm of a complete stranger. "I thought you were someone else."

She apologised again before rushing off, and then a thought struck her. She pulled out a standard bit of auror field kit, a pair of glasses that could see through most glamour charms. She looked back at the boy through the glasses; nope his eyes were still brown. He was definitely not Harry Potter. Thank goodness the other two had not been with her. They would never have let her live it down - her thinking that a random stranger was the boy who lived. Oh dear, she was starting to see Harry Potter everywhere.

She hurried along and a few moments later found herself at Oudekerksplein. She was surprised to see Lupin and Snape just standing around there. They seemed oddly embarrassed when they saw her.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "I thought your note said we'd be meeting at Magischstraat."

"We ah...we couldn't find the entrance," explained Lupin.

"They seem to have moved it since I was last here," said Snape. "We were just waiting until we spotted someone who could tell us where the entrance is."

"Honestly, did none of you bother to check out a guidebook? They put in a new marker a few years back. You need to find the bronze bust that's embedded in the sidewalk."

"A bronze bust?" asked Snape.

"Yes, it's should be near the church. You have to tap the stone at the bottom of the bust. Once you do that the entrance to the street becomes visible."

"Oh, I think I saw something like that on the other side of the church. Follow me, it's in that direction," said Lupin.

A minute later, Tonks was stamping on a stone at the bottom of a strange piece of sculpture - one that had been embedded right into the surface of the road. As soon as her foot lifted from the stone, the three of them saw a door that had not been there before suddenly appear. They walked through it to find a narrow brick lined alley, one just wide enough for a single person to walk through at a time.

"Let's go," said Tonks. "As far as I know, the street is at the other end of the alley. The Dutch Aurors have an office somewhere on the street. We should check in with them first."

**~oo00oo~**

Harry's heart was hammering like a freight train. He couldn't believe it. He had been recognised. He had been so sure that his disguise would be good enough to protect him. Well, it had, but it seemed like the woman only thought he wasn't Harry after she had gotten a good look at his eyes and forehead. What if it had been someone else? Someone who would have cursed first and asked questions later. He ducked around a corner and quickly got under the invisibility cloak with Dobby.

"Who is that woman?" he wondered. "Is she a Death Eater? Well, she could also be with the Ministry," he thought, "Not that it makes much difference."

He decided to follow her and hurried back around the corner to see the woman rushing down the street. He quickly raced after her, pulling Dobby along with him.

"Has to be either a Death Eater or someone from the ministry," he explained to Dobby. "Not likely that there's anyone else looking for me. Well okay, I guess Dumbledore might be looking for me as well, but I don't see the Headmaster of Hogwarts working with someone who has pink hair. Do you?"

Harry followed the pink haired woman, he was careful to keep her at some distance. He saw her meeting some men. He could not make out their features at this distance so he had Dobby remove the omnioculars he had bought at the world cup from his backpack. He raised the omnioculars to his eyes and looked for the woman through them. It was always a little difficult for him to locate something in the omnioculars field of vision. It usually took him a few seconds to find whatever he was looking for even if he had been staring right at it. He found the woman in the omnioculars just as she disappeared. She had seemed to suddenly vanish in thin air followed swiftly by the men she had been meeting.

"Looks like she's entered a magical area," he said. "Probably something hidden like the entrance to Diagon Alley."

He rewound the omnioculars to play back the last few minutes. When he replayed the footage he was shocked to see that the pink haired woman was in fact keeping company with two men that he recognised. Two men that he recognised very well indeed, even though they were wearing muggle clothes instead of the robes he was used to seeming them in.

He snarled in hate and anger. Lupin, one of the men was Lupin and the other was Snape.

"Looks like I was absolutely right about Lupin," he said. "Since he's not working at Hogwarts any more he should have absolutely no reason to be keeping company with Snape. That means he's definitely a Death Eater as well. Why else would he be with Snape?"

"Dobby, it looks like we're going to have to leave Amsterdam sooner than we planned. It's not safe here any more. Can you pop us back to the hotel? We're just going to grab Hedwig and whatever else we left there and then we're going to go straight to Schiphol Airport and catching the first plane out of here."

**~oo00oo~**


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: A little bit of trivia about the previous chapter. The bust embedded in the sidewalk actually exists and was installed by an anonymous artist sometime in 1993. It can be found in Oudekerksplein which is located right in the middle of Amsterdam's RLD.

Also, a couple of reviewers asked about Harry's Family vault. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was there a Potter Family vault in canon? As far as I know, Harry only had the one vault. This was described as having stacks of gold coins higher than Harry, so even if he doesn't have a Family vault I doubt Harry is hurting for money.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Harry barely noticed as the first of September approached. He had pushed Hogwarts to the back of his mind and the fact that he would normally be preparing for his trip back to school at this time barely registered in his mind. He was far too busy travelling from place to place to worry about missing school.

After his close call in Amsterdam he made it a point never to spend more than a few days in any one place. He was still kicking himself for being naive enough to think that the Death Eaters wouldn't find him just because he had left England. Of course they would look for him. He had been incredibly stupid to assume otherwise.

The first plane out of Amsterdam had been headed to Chicago. As soon as the plane had landed at O'Hare Harry had Dobby apparate him directly off the plane straight into the city. Harry and Dobby had barely paused in Chicago for a day before apparating over to Milwaukee and so on they went - Popping all over America.

He barely took off his invisibility cloak any more. Sitting and enjoying a snack at a cafe or restaurant was no longer an option for him. He just felt too exposed sitting anywhere he could be seen.

He had bleached his hair blonde in an effort to disguise himself further. But even with that he still felt unable to go out in public. What made it worse was that he was still flinching violently whenever he looked into a mirror. The blonde hair looked absolutely ridiculous to him and it really didn't help that he had been unable to get his eyebrows to match. One was nearly platinum blonde and the other was stuck at a browny beige.

He also had a sneaking suspicion that the back of his head did not really match the front either. He hoped that he would soon have another episode of the accidental magic that had re-grown his hair after his aunt had hacked it off that one time. If not he would soon have to endure an embarrassing visit to a hairdressers.

Still, that barely mattered at the moment. He had so much to do. He needed to come up with a permanent way of making sure he was safe. He needed to find a way to settle down somewhere. This constant travelling was getting to be incredibly exhausting.

Sighing to himself, he dug into his backpack for the pile of guidebooks that Dobby had gotten for him a lifetime ago in Privet Drive. He needed to find a magical bookshop. He had so much to learn. Glamour spells and warning wards and anti tracking charms. The list just went on and on.

**~oo00oo~**

Halfway across the globe, Albus Dumbledore was only too aware that the first of September was fast approaching. He was in fact staring at a calendar even then. Harry had disappeared on the 2nd of August. It had taken him two weeks to construct the tracker. The search time had been in the Netherlands for only 4 days before the tracker had shown that Harry was no longer in that country. Now it was nearly a month later and they still had not found Harry.

The tracker was currently absolutely useless. Harry was moving around far too much. He did not even have enough time to get the team to the location pointed to by the tracker before Harry was moving again. Each time Harry moved the tracker would go wild, the dial jumping all over the place, and it would take several hours before it could get another fix on the boy. He could not understand why the tracker was behaving so erratically.

At times the Dial jumped so suddenly that it was obvious that Harry had managed to get a hold of a port key. Perhaps he had even managed to get someone to apparate him from place to place. Yet at other times the dial would sweep steadily across the dial indicating that Harry was moving at an impossibly fast speed. Much faster than even the top speed of that Firebolt that Harry owned.

How was Harry doing it? Perhaps he wasn't doing anything, Dumbledore decided. It could just be the tracker that was malfunctioning. He had to come up with a way to improve the performance of the tracker. Perhaps he needed to rebuild it with better components. Swapping out the bronze gears for a gold alloy should decrease the sensitivity to ambient magical fields he mused. Perhaps he should look into increasing the sensitivity of the signal strength gauge first. He had so much to do.

And yet his eyes kept returning to the calendar. The first of September was approaching. It felt like a death knell. On the first of September, the students would be returning to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, they would return without Harry Potter.

The news that Harry Potter was no longer attending Hogwarts would soon leak wide and far and with that would go any hope he had of keeping Harry safe. So far, he had managed to keep Harry's disappearance mostly under wraps. Thank goodness, his and Kingsley's testimony had been enough to squash that disciplinary hearing the Ministry had called for Harry. Snape had also verified that Voldemort had not yet heard that Harry was missing. But that would soon change.

Soon Voldemort would know everything. When the boy failed to turn up to meet the Hogwarts Express, it would no longer be a secret. Voldemort would hear of it and he was sure that the first thing that Voldemort would do was send out his own search teams - Teams that would be set to kill or capture Harry Potter.

Unfortunately, there was really nothing he could do to keep the news from breaking. He held absolutely no illusions that Harry would turn up on the train. The damn Ministry's expulsion notice had seen to that.

He had briefly contemplated roping in Nymphadora Tonks to impersonate Harry but he had decided that there would be little point in that. Tonks could not just disappear from her job as an Auror. Even if she could, he sincerely doubted that even a Metamorphmagus of her talent could pull off a long-term deception like that. Hell, the very first time she had to sit on a broom everyone would know that it was not really Harry Potter they were seeing. Eventually the story would break.

Polyjuicing someone else to take Harry's place was also out of the question, simply because they had no supply of source material. Why hadn't he ever laid in a supply of Harry's hair?

What could he do? Soon Voldemort would know that Harry was not at Hogwarts. That he was somewhere out there, alone and unprotected.

What could he do?

**~oo00oo~**

The two Hogwarts students had split up and searched the entire train but they had not found their quarry. As they met, back at their compartment the two of them felt a sense of acute loss and disappointment. While they had not truly expected Harry to turn up on the train, they had still been hoping - Hoping for a miracle, hoping that somehow he would turn up and join them for another year at Hogwarts.

"Didn't see him then?" asked Hermione.

"No", said Ron.

Hermione sighed, "We'd better get to the prefect's meeting then."

"Do we have to?" moaned Ron. "I don't feel like sitting with the other Prefects at all."

"Ron", admonished Hermione, "Of course we have to. Just because...just because Har...Let's just go. I'm sure it won't take too long."

The two friends sadly made their way to the prefect's compartment.

**~oo00oo~**

A furious Hermione made her way back from the prefect's meeting. Malfoy, Draco Malfoy had been made a prefect. Did Dumbledore ever stop and think about what he was doing? Did he even stop and think for one single second about what kind of message making Malfoy a prefect would send to the rest of the students.

This was the same boy who had crowed with glee when muggleborn students were getting petrified back in second year. The boy who made a habit of hurling racial epithets around like they meant nothing. The same boy who had been antagonising and insulting Harry since first year. The boy whose father had been the one to give Voldemort's diary to an innocent eleven year old girl. The boy who had almost gotten Buckbeak executed.

Now, that same utterly vile despicable sorry excuse of a human being had been made prefect.

Well, she thought, message received loud and clear Dumbledore. Obviously in magical Britain actions had obviously no consequences as long as you were a rich pureblood. You could behave as vilely as you wanted to muggleborns and as long as you were a rich pureblood - positions of power and authority would be handed to you whether you deserved them or not.

She had worked hard, had gone to extreme lengths to get good grades and prove herself worthy of becoming a prefect. What had Malfoy done? What effort had he taken to prove himself worthy of being a prefect? And it wasn't just him she realised...she felt sick as she came to a sudden realisation.

She turned and stared at Ron who was currently talking to Neville and that strange blonde girl who was still reading her magazine upside down. Why had Ron been made prefect? Harry had probably been their first choice and his sudden disappearance would have forced them to choose someone else. If he had been there - surely he would have gotten the position? Wouldn't he? Of course he would have. How could they possibly have chosen anyone over Harry.

Why Ron though? Why not someone like Neville or even Dean Thomas? True, Neville wasn't the most confident of boys but she was certain that his grades were better than Ron's. His skills in Herbology alone were enough to drag his overall grade higher than Ron's. He was also far more responsible than Ron who was always slacking off. Ron had never been the type to follow the rules either.

Still, perhaps they hadn't chosen Neville because of his shy nature. Prefects had to enforce the rules after all and shyness would be of no help there. Dean now, he could have made a good prefect. She couldn't remember him ever getting into any kind of serious trouble at school and he seemed to be well liked by most people and probably had decent grades as well. So why had Ron been chosen over Dean?

The only reason that she could think of for Ron to be made a prefect over Dean was...Ron was a pureblood and Dean was a muggleborn. True, Ron's family wasn't particularly rich but they were purebloods and they were awfully close to the Headmaster as well. Was that all it took?

She stared out the train window, feeling utterly miserable. Harry had better return soon.

**~oo00oo~**

Draco Malfoy was pissed off. What good was it to be made a prefect if he couldn't rub it in Potter's face? Where the hell was the Gryffindor Golden Boy anyway? Why wasn't he on the train? The mudblood and the ginger blood traitor weren't talking and no one else was close enough to the arrogant prat.

He snorted in annoyance. Bloody Potter! He's probably pulling another stunt like the one in second year. What's he going to turn up at school in this time? Riding on the back of a dragon?

**~oo00oo~**

Sirius Black stared morosely at his glass of firewhiskey. He felt utterly and completely useless. Dumbledore, the senile old goat buggerer, refused to let him leave Grimauld Place to search for Harry. He would have - should have gone anyway, but Dumbledore was the only one who had a method of tracking Harry and he wasn't sharing that information with him. Even Remus had refused to tell him where they thought Harry might be.

Damn Remus, damn him to hell. Going off with Snape to search for Harry! Damn him. What gave them the right to treat him like this? He was Harry's Godfather. He should be the one out there looking for him. Not forced to stay here alone at Grimauld.

At least Molly Weasley and her brats had not stayed long. God alone knew what Dumbledore was thinking, sending that horrible harridan to live in his house. She had the gall to order him around in his own house - In his own house for heaven's sake. Thank god she had gone back to the Burrow after it became clear that Harry was not going to be found in a day or two. He didn't know if he could have stomached her presence for much longer.

Still, a part of him had been sorry to see them all go. Being stuck here alone in this dark and dingy house with only Kreacher to keep him company was no picnic. Even the occasional Order meeting failed to cheer things up.

He snorted at the thought of the Order of the Phoenix and took a gulp of his whiskey. Bloody useless lot of wankers, he thought. They can't even keep track of one teenage boy. What bloody good will they be when they it's time to fight Voldemort?

They had better find Harry soon or he was going to break into Hogwarts and steal whatever the hell Dumbledore was using to track Harry. Then let them try and keep him away from his Godson.

**~oo00oo~**

Arthur Weasley came home that day to find his wife sitting alone at the kitchen table. Oddly enough for the first time in years dinner was not already waiting for him. Nor was there anything on the stove. This did not bode well.

"Is anything the matter Mollywobbles?" he asked.

"We need to talk Arthur", said Molly.

Oh dear, oh dear. This was bad; this was very…very bad. What had happened?

"Has anything happened?" Arthur asked.

Molly snorted in disbelief. "Do you really need to ask that Arthur? Didn't you hear about what happened to Sturgis?"

"He's been arrested, I know. But what does that..."

"He was arrested because Dumbledore had him guarding the Prophecies. Why hasn't Dumbledore had him released already? Why is he still under arrest?" demanded Molly.

"I'm sure the Headmaster is going to have him released soon Molly. You don't need to worry", said Arthur.

"Oh, it's not him I'm worried about Arthur. What if it had been you instead? What if you were the one under arrest? I don't think we can trust the Headmaster to keep you out of Azkaban Arthur. Look at what happened to Harry. Dumbledore had Mundungus guarding him. Mundungus! As useless a wizard as I've ever seen and Dumbledore had him guarding Harry."

"Molly...You can't talk that way about Dumbledore", said a deeply shocked Arthur Weasley. He could not believe his ears. Molly had always been one of Dumbledore's staunchest supporters.

"Why bloody hell not? He couldn't even keep Harry safe. What good is he?" shouted Mrs. Weasley.

Arthur sputtered in disbelief. Unfortunately at that moment he couldn't really come up with an adequate defence of Dumbledore.

"I'm telling you right now", Molly continued. "You are not to stand guard at the Ministry any longer. I will not have it."

"But...but...I have to", said Mr. Weasley.

"No, Arthur, No", said Molly. Her voice was rising and she was starting to tear up as well. "I will not have it. We are done risking our lives in Dumbledore's games. I lost enough family in the last war. I will not lose any more. Do you hear me?"

"Yes dear. If it means that much to you, we won't involve ourselves with the Order any more", said a defeated Mr. Weasley. There was no arguing with Molly when she was in this state. He just hoped that they found Harry soon so that she would return to normal. For now though he had a wife to comfort.

**~oo00oo~**

Rita Skeeter was ecstatic. She had started digging as soon as she received word from one of her informants at Hogwarts and it had paid off in spades. This would be the biggest story of the year and the best bit was it was all absolutely true. She even had proof in the form of copies of the expulsion notice sent to the Boy who lived and copies of the testimony provided by Dumbledore and that auror bloke. Her editor was going to have kittens. All she needed now was a good headline.

"Ministry expels Boy who lived for charm cast by an auror!" No, that would not do at all. It wasn't nearly sensational enough.

"Ministry and Dumbledore conspire to have Harry Potter expelled!" Better but still not quite what she was looking for.

"Fudge attempts to have the Boy who lived kissed by dementors then expels him." Yes, that was much better but didn't have quite the correct ring to it.

"Harry Potter missing after dementor assassination plot foiled. Fudge expels him in retaliation."

"Dementors attack Boy Who Lived! Is Harry Potter dead? Why did the Ministry expel Harry Potter? Ministry Cover-up exposed!"

"Boy Who Lived missing after Dementor attack! Is Harry Potter dead?"

"Fudge expels Boy Who Lived to cover up failed dementor assasination!"

"Boy Who Lived Missing - Presumed DEAD! Is Fudge responsible?"

Yes, that last one would do nicely, she thought, although perhaps she should tack on a few more exclamation points. Now the only thing to do is to get that Granger girl to sign off on it and lift that vow she had forced her to take. She was sure that Hermione Granger should have no problem with this article. After the way the Ministry had been taking shots at Potter all summer she should be eager to get some payback.

**~oo00oo~**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

**~oo00oo~**

Lucius Malfoy was enjoying his early morning cup of tea when the mark on his arm blazed into life. His master was calling him and from the sheer intensity of the burning pain radiating out from the tattoo he knew it was extremely urgent.

Why was Voldemort using the mark to call him? After all, the dark lord was staying in his home. He could have simply told one of the elves to fetch him. He hurried downstairs still clad only in his bathrobe to find Voldemort pacing around in his drawing room. There were burned scraps of paper and ash floating in the air. He barely had time to wonder what they were before he was suddenly subjected to the cruciatus curse.

"Crucio", screamed Voldemort as he pointed his wand at Malfoy.

Lucius screamed and thrashed on the floor as his nerve endings exploded in agony. A thousand white-hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin. Dull rusty jagged knives that were scraping along his bones and he was screaming...screaming louder than he had ever screamed before. Twenty seconds later he was hoping for death and the cessation of all feeling, but it was a full two minutes before Voldemort lifted the curse from him.

"Get up you snivelling worm. Get up and explain to me how you let this happen", shouted Voldemort.

Malfoy struggled to get up, to get his aching limbs to obey. He tried to beg forgiveness from his master for whatever it was that had displeased him but all that came out was -

"Sneerp...gurgle...a suffusion of yellow...warm...slimy...down my leg...Would you like some tea?"

"Stop babbling you idiot. Tell me how you let this happen. You have one job - to keep Fudge under your thumb and make sure he does nothing that goes against our plans, and you couldn't even do that. How did you let him expel Potter? Tell me Lucius, how does it serve my plans to have Harry Potter disappear? How?" shouted Voldemort.

"Urk...P-P-Potter...Fuh-fuh-fudge...don't know...expel...when...peaches..."

Voldemort sneered at the hapless wizard who was still whimpering and drooling. "Damn it to hell", he thought. "Why were all of them so bloody useless? Is it too much to expect competence from my followers? Look at this weak bloody idiot. One little cruciatus curse and his brains get scrambled. I hit Potter with far worse and he still managed to escape. Not only did he manage to get away from the graveyard but he took that Hufflepuff's corpse with him as well. If only my Death Eaters would show half as much resolve."

He sighed and stalked around the room. Bloody incompetents, all of them. Even Snape had not managed to inform him of the fact that Potter had vanished. Well, he would soon make the filthy, greasy half-blood pay for his incompetence. It was absolutely ridiculous that he had to learn about Potter's situation from a newspaper. The Prophet - of all despicable rags. What was the point of having a spy in Dumbledore's school if not to inform him of things like this?

Oh yes, he and Snape would be having quite a long discussion about this.

Speaking of Potter, should he task his Death Eaters to search for him? It would probably be useless to send them out looking for him. Potter could be anywhere. No point in wasting manpower and resources to look for him. No, instead he would contact his informants and sympathisers discretely and have them keep an eye out.

Yes, Potter's disappearance was...inconvenient and might make it necessary to change his plans regarding the prophecy. There was also the annoyance that he no longer knew where Potter was at all times. Knowing the location of your enemy had inestimable value after all.

Still, there was no real hurry, Potter was only a boy. It would be years before he could truly pose a credible threat, especially as that blood protection of his had been negated. Sooner or later someone would spot Potter. Either that or he would find a way to lure him back. Then he would find him and kill him, publicly and brutally.

He sniffed the air, the blonde ponce had soiled himself to boot. Useless, absolutely useless. He really should move up his plans to break Bella and the others out of Azkaban. She was far more competent, though a bit over-zealous, than this...this weak excuse for a pureblood. Such a pity that he still needed Malfoy to influence Fudge and the Ministry or he would happily spend the next week or two slowly flaying the gurgling idiot inch by painful inch.

He should probably call an elf or someone to come take care of the idiot. A few healing potions should have the moron up and about in a few days. Then he would set him to the task of finding out exactly who was responsible for this debacle. Someone would pay - Pay dearly. He would prolong their torture for months. Yes, that was what he would do.

Oh for the love of...when would Lucius stop that ridiculous moaning? Honestly, what was wrong with the man? It was only a little crucio.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry finally found the book he had been looking for in a little magical bookshop in San Fransisco. He'd been raiding bookshops at every city he visited but this was the first time he had found one which contained a description of the ritual he needed.

It had taken him a long time; weeks upon weeks spent scouring dusty piles of books. Weeks spent trying to decipher old books printed in archaic fonts. Long, long days which usually ended with him collapsed with tired burning eyes in rented motel rooms.

"Still", he thought, "looking back it's been interesting researching this. Not only did I pick up a ton of useful spells along the way but I've also managed to build up quite the collection of books. I bet Hermione would be incredibly jealous."

He quickly squelched that train of thought. Thinking of Hermione just made him feel lonely. His anger towards her had long since faded and when he thought of her now he tended to focus on only the good memories. He did miss her a bit, but what could he do? There was absolutely no way to see her again. He couldn't just waltz back into Hogwarts after all. It was best he put her out of his mind.

For a brief moment he wondered whether he could visit her and Ron after he had completed the ritual. "It should be safe then but it wouldn't be the same", he thought, "Not after I've done it. It would probably be too strange to see them afterwards. No, it was probably best to make a clean break of it. Best to totally forget about Hogwarts and the burrow and...everything"

**~oo00oo~**

Nymphadora Tonks was exceptionally annoyed. Dumbledore was still insisting that she look for Harry Potter even though the search for him had been absolutely useless so far. Why he couldn't find someone else to do it she had no idea. At least she didn't have to put up with Snape any more since the bugger had to go back to Hogwarts once the school term started.

Remus Lupin was hardly better though. Initially she had been slightly attracted to the quiet bookish man but that attraction had died a quick death once they began spending so much time together on the search for Harry. Really the man was an incredibly annoying wet blanket and she was thoroughly sick of his whole - poor me, pity me because I turn into a werewolf once a month routine.

For gods sake wasn't it high time he came to terms with his condition. Really, that attitude of his was highly unappealing. Why on earth had she had ever thought him even slightly attractive?

He hadn't been so bad when he was around Sirius, then at least he seemed to be infinitely happier and had even been fun to be around. On his own though, ugh!

Sometimes she really wished that Dumbledore hadn't managed to get Madam Bones to sign off on this whole situation. Now she didn't even have the excuse that she had to get back to work and the search was increasingly frustrating.

Dumbledore still was only managing to give them the vaguest of directions. How they were supposed to find Harry like this she had no idea. Vague directions, incredibly large search areas which changed every few days. It was worse than a needle in a haystack. Why on earth was she still bothering?

She was going to talk to Madam Bones and tell her that this whole affair was a terrible waste of time. At least until Dumbledore managed to get his tracker working properly.

**~oo00oo~**

Cornelius Fudge sat morosely in his office. There was a large screaming mob in the Ministry Atrium protesting the disappearance of the Boy-Who-Lived and calling for his head on a platter. Why on earth were they blaming him? He had nothing to do with the boy's vanishing act. Thank goodness the Wizengamot was supporting him. Truth be told, he didn't know how much longer that would continue to be true. His popularity had taken quite a beating when the whole scandal came to light.

Damn Skeeter and damn her quill. Why couldn't the stupid bint have kept her mouth shut? Well, she at least was never going to get another interview from him.

Only the fact that Dumbledore had always claimed responsibility for the well-being of Harry Potter was keeping him from a quick unceremonious exit from the Ministry. That had redirected much of the ire that the Wizengamot members were currently feeling. For a national hero to suddenly disappear like that was shocking to the public, no matter what the prophet had been saying about the boy the entire summer.

Still, he had managed to shift most of the blame away from him. Dumbledore of course was a prime target, not only for the fact that he had failed to keep the boy safe, but he was also the one to cast the patronus charm that caused the expulsion notice to be sent out.

He'd had to transfer Mafalda Hopkirk from the Improper Use of Magic Office of course. He might have felt regret for that, if she had possessed the good sense to just keep her mouth shut. Unfortunately, she of course had claimed that she had only been following his orders concerning the expulsion notice but luckily he had never put that in writing. Let her suffer for a few years down in floo maintenance. Perhaps he should have her transferred to Misuse of Muggle Artefacts. Yes, that would teach her to keep her bloody mouth shut.

Damn that boy. Nothing but trouble. Ever since he had blown up his aunt he had been nothing but trouble.

**~oo00oo~**

Patrick Anderson woke up early as usual. He was conscientious about keeping fit and religiously went for a jog every morning. After splashing some water on his face he quickly put on his tracksuit and made his way outside where he performed a few stretches. He was just about to start his run when he was surprised to see a young teenager appear at the end of his driveway.

"Hello", said the young man, speaking in a British accent. "Sorry to bother you sir, but I have a bit of a problem and I was hoping you could help me."

"Uhh", said Patrick, wondering how he should politely decline. He didn't really want to waste time; he had a routine to stick to after all.

"It won't take long, it's just that I've been house sitting next door and the power seems to have gone out. It's probably just the fuse box, but I don't really know anything about electricity"

"You're staying at the Carmichaels? Oh yeah, I forgot they were going on vacation", said Patrick.

"Yes, you know how it is; I'm just here to look after the plants and all. My parents are friends of theirs so...anyway I don't suppose you could have a look?"

"Sure kid, sure. Not a problem. Probably just the fuse box like you said." No harm in helping the kid out, besides it pays to be neighbourly. You never know when you might need some help as well, thought Patrick as he followed the teenager next door.

The kid showed him into the house, leading him to the fuse box and gesturing helplessly at it.

Patrick shook his head. Kids today were absolutely useless. None of them seemed to know anything. He wondered what on earth they were being taught at school these days. He opened the box and peered at the switches. Hmmm, none of the fuses seemed to have tripped.

He was turning towards the boy to ask him whether there were any other fuse boxes when he heard the boy mutter something, a sudden flash of red light filled his vision and he collapsed unconscious upon the floor.

**~oo00oo~**

Tonks was elated. Just when she had been about to give up, Dumbledore had come through. He had finally come up with a smaller version of his tracker that she could carry around with her. She would find Harry soon. Even now, the tracker was indicating that he was less than fifty miles to her north. She was flying towards him, disillusioned on a broomstick. Once she was close enough the tracker should point her right at him.

Soon the search would be over. Soon Harry Potter would be back at Hogwarts safe and sound and then she could finally get back to her job.

She accelerated and pushed the broom to its top speed. The faster she got there the better.

**~oo00oo~**

He came to with a start to find himself sitting in a chair in the Carmichaels' kitchen. The kid was sitting on the other side of the kitchen table. There was another kid, a short one whose face was hidden by an orange hoodie, puttering around near the stove. What was going on? Why had he passed out? Why couldn't he seem to move? He felt that he should be more panicked about what had happened but for some reason he was strangely calm. Almost as if he had been drugged.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"Uh...Well, I guess I should start by apologising", the boy said. "I'm afraid I got you here under false pretences. I don't really know the Carmichaels. I just had my friend here look for a house where the owners would be away."

"Okay", he said. So the boy had broken into the Carmichaels' house. Really, what did it matter? It was really odd how he couldn't seem to make himself care about things like that. He frowned, something was seriously wrong with him. "Did you drug me?" he asked.

"Drug...no, no, nothing like that I assure you. I just hit you with a calming charm. I couldn't have you panicking after all", said the boy, looking for all the world like he was truly regretting what he was doing.

Calming charm, what the hell? Okay, ignore that and try to figure out a way out of this mess. "Okay, then why am I here? What do you want from me?" he asked.

"Well, it's a bit of a long story really so I'm going to just stick to the main points. The thing is...hmmm...well, the thing is - I need your help with something."

"My help! Why can't I seem to move by the way?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. You'll be fine in a little while, I've just stuck you to the chair. Now as I was saying I need your help."

Stuck him to a chair...Bloody hell...Okay, so the kid needed help. Strange way he had of asking for help but what the hell, he guessed he no choice but to hear the kid out. Not like he had could do anything else right now.

"Someone is trying to kill me and..."

"Shouldn't you go to the police then?" he interrupted.

"I would, but they don't believe me. I think the minister is working for the man who is trying to kill me so the police wouldn't help me."

The minister? What the hell was a minister? Some sort of priest? He had never been particularly religious, but ministers were like priests, right? Why would the cops be listening to some minister?

"So basically - I need to hide. I need to do something so that they can never find me and the best way to do that is to use something called the Fidelius Charm."

"What's that?"

"It's a magic spell, well they call it a charm, but really it's more of a ritual I think. Certainly seems to have some components that are very much like rituals."

Okay, this kid was definitely a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. Poor little bugger - nuttier than a fruitcake. He was probably one of those wiccans or something. He would feel sorry for him if the lunatic hadn't gone and kidnapped him.

"So...you think that some hocus-pocus stuff will keep you safe. Well, go for it then", he said. Yes, he would try humouring the kid, as long as it got him out of here.

"Right, so I just need your help with this spell and then I can let you go on your way."

Great, the loon probably wanted to perform some sort of satanic ritual on him. He really should be panicking by now.

"No, listen kid; you really don't need my help. Why don't you get your little buddy over there to help you? I'm sure he'll be much better at this sort of thing."

"I wish I could sir", said the kid. "The problem is that the book I found about the ritual - it said that the secret has to be hidden inside a human soul. I don't know if it'll work with my friend. He's...well...let's just say he's a bit different."

"Inside a human soul? How are you going to get something inside my soul." Oh God, oh god, he knew it, the kid was going to cut him open and shove something inside his corpse. He struggled to pull himself free from the chair. What the hell was holding him in place? Had the kid superglued him to the chair? It certainly felt like it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the kid pull out a stick and mutter something. Seconds later he felt a feeling of absolute peace wash over him. Damn...whatever drugs the kid was giving him were good, really bloody good. That stick must be some sort of aerosol spray filled with a sedative.

"Please sir, I need you stay calm. All I really need from you is for you to memorise something."

"You want me to memorise something. What? What could be so important that you would kidnap me and drug me and...And..."

"Okay, so the Fidelius Charm is used to hide secrets. It's a magic spell that can be used to hide any piece of information. For instance, if the secret was - 'The Carmichaels live at No 24 Baxter Drive' then it would hide this entire house. You could walk by it every day and never notice it was there."

"So you want to hide your house?"

"No, I want to do something far more effective. Really, just using the charm to hide a house. It seems so...pedestrian. I think you could do pretty much the same thing with a notice-me-not charm. Plus if I do that then I'm stuck in that house. No, what I want is...I want to hide myself."

"So, this fid...whatever, it makes you invisible?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so. However it should prevent anyone who is looking for me from ever finding me. If it works correctly then they should forget I even exist. And all I really need is a secret keeper. That's where you come in. The book recommended getting someone I trust implicitly, but I don't have anyone I'd trust with this. So I figured - What if the secret keeper himself couldn't remember the secret after it was hidden inside his soul? Wouldn't that make it impossible to break the Fidelius? I could use anyone as my secret keeper then. Anyway...So I'd like you to please read and memorise what's written on this piece of paper."

Okay, he could do that. He read what was written on the piece of paper. It didn't make much sense but whatever - The kid was crazy.

"Okay, have you memorised it. Could you please repeat it for me?"

He repeated the sentence. Then again and once again. Finally the kid was satisfied.

"Okay then. All I need to do is finish the spell. First we keep the secret within the ritual circle." The kid placed the bit of paper that he had just memorised inside a circle drawn on the kitchen table. Odd how he had not noticed that before.

"Then all I need to do is cast the charm and..." The kid started waving his stick around muttering gibberish all the while before finally bring it around with a flourish and pointing it at him. He had a bit of a start when the piece of paper suddenly burst into flames and vanished. What the hell? Okay, that was a neat trick. The kid could probably perform at parties.

"Oh...oh dear...that did take quite a lot out of me", said the kid as he collapsed into a chair. "Crap but I'm exhausted, hmm, I wonder if that worked. Let me see - My name is _. My name is _. Wow, I can't even say what my name is now. Dobby, do you know what my name is?"

The kid was grinning away madly. He seemed to be very pleased with himself.

"Dobby does not know what Master's name is", muttered the kid in the orange hoodie. He sounded like he was incredibly stressed out. "Dobby...What is Dobby doing here? Dobby should be working..."

"Could you please repeat what I made you memorise", asked the kid.

"Sure, sure - Harry James Potter, the son of Lily and James Potter, survived the killing curse as a child and is known as the boy who lived."

"Dobby, do you know who I am now?"

"Yes, Dobby remembers now, Harry Potter is a great wizard" squeaked the fellow in the orange hoodie as he jumped up and down.

Wizard? What the hell? Both these kids were absolutely nuts.

"Excellent, just one last thing sir and I'll let you go. Could you please write out that sentence in your own hand? Here's a pen and paper. I'm going to free your hand now, all right."

His hand was suddenly free. Could he throttle the kid? No, he was too far away for that. Okay, just write what the kid wants and hope that's the end to it.

"Thank you", said the kid as he carefully folded the piece of paper up and placed it in his wallet.

"Now I'm going to put you back to sleep for a little while. When you wake up you won't remember any of this. Still I'd like to thank you. You've been an enormous help to me and I'm so sorry about what I had to put you through."

Yeah kid, yeah, just you wait. Like he'd forget any of this. He was going to have the kid arrested and shipped of to a mental hospital the moment he got free. What the hell, the kid was waving his stick around again and what was that red...

**~oo00oo~**

Patrick Anderson woke up with a start. Damn it, he had overslept. Why hadn't his alarm woken him up? He rolled out of bed with a groan. He'd have to skip his morning jog today if he was going to make it into work on time. Why the hell was he sleeping in his boxers? He could have sworn he was wearing pyjamas last night. Huh...he must have kicked them off in the night.

Forget that, it's not important. Need to have a quick shower and head to work. Bloody hell, he was going to be late if he didn't hurry.

**~oo00oo~**

Tonks landed her broomstick. She frowned at the tracker that was clipped to its handle. The damn thing had suddenly stopped working. The dials were spinning around at random. Bloody Hell, Why did this have to happen now? Just when they had been so close. Now how was she supposed to find...What the hell?

Remus Lupin landed his broom next to her.

"What happened? Why did you stop?" he asked.

"The tracker...the bloody tracker...it stopped working... B-But...Remus, what are we doing here?" she asked.

"What do you mean? We're searching for the boy who lived?" he answered.

"Yes, but who is he? What's his name? I can't remember...I can't remember anything about him..."

"Tonks...Don't be stupid...we're looking for...Uhh...we're looking for...his name is..." Remus stopped talking. He looked utterly gobsmacked.

"Exactly, I...I mean we're out here looking for the Boy-Who-Lived but I don't even know what he looks like, or what his name is. What the hell happened?"

"But...I could have sworn we knew...something is wrong...something is very very wrong. Come on, we need to get back to Scotland, we need to find Dumbledore."

**~oo00oo~**


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Well, judging from the sheer number of reviews for the last chapter, I must be doing something right. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I do appreciate it.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Sirius Black woke up from his afternoon nap feeling quite strange. He had the oddest feeling that he was forgetting something extremely important. What could it be, he wondered. The odd feeling persisted as he made his way to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He could have asked Kreacher to make the tea but he hated being around the malevolent little bugger.

With a wave of his wand water poured into a teapot where it instantly started boiling before settling down into a steady simmer. He rummaged around in the drawers looking for the tea before finally finding a canister at the back of one of the cupboards. He frowned as he opened it and looked at the black leaves. The problem was that there were some wizarding varieties of tea that were so potent that a single leaf was more than enough to brew an entire pot of tea. If this was one of those, then putting in too many leaves might result in him ending up in the highly dangerous state of being Knurd.*

Still this did not look like one of those blends. This looked more like a rather prosaic CTC blend. At least he hoped it was. How much tea was he supposed to add to the pot? He had no idea, but he guessed that a teaspoon would probably do, as long as it wasn't one of those special blends. He tossed a teaspoon's worth of tea leaves into the teapot and waited. He would let it steep for a couple of minutes. Trying to rush that step with magic, at least for him, always resulted in truly foul tasting tea.

He gazed off into the distance as he waited for his tea. His fingers were drumming incessantly upon the table. What was wrong with him? Why did he feel so strange?

He poured the tea into a cup, added a dash of milk and sugar then took a tentative sip. Terrible. Truly and utterly awful. He fought down the urge to rinse his mouth out and took another sip instead.

He put his head into his hands and sighed deeply. Merlin, but he hated being back in England, hated this dark dingy house with all its unpleasant memories. Why had he come back?

He froze...shocked, utterly and completely shocked. The question seemed to be reverberating in his brain. Why had he come back?

He had absolutely no reason to come back to England. He had no family to speak of, not really, he had never even been particularly close to Andromeda and she and Nymphadora were the only relatives he would ever care to acknowledge as such. He had been abandoned by all his friends and the people that he had fought and bled with. Not one of them had questioned his imprisonment in Azkaban.

He had been sent to the place that was the very embodiment of hell on earth and no one had said anything. Twelve years in hell and not one…not one single bloody one of his so called friends had protested or even questioned it. Why would he come back to that?

He had been relatively happy and at peace hiding out in the islands. What could have changed that?

All he could remember was a feeling that someone had needed him. Someone important to him had been in trouble and he had come back to help them.

But...there was no one like that in his life. Not one person that he felt that way about. Even Remus…No, he would not have come back for Remus Lupin. Not after Azkaban.

He was flooded with stark terror. Complete and utter fear filled every fibre of his body.

Someone had done something to him. Had he been placed under the Imperius curse? What else could explain why he came back to England?

Why would anyone do that? What could they have needed him back in England for?

His house? No, that surely was not reason enough. Dumbledore would not have placed him under the Imperius simply so that he could use his house for the headquarters of the Order. Or would he?

He made a snap decision. He would not stick around to find out why he had been forced back to England. No, for whatever reason, the Imperius curse or whatever had been done to him was no longer affecting him and he had to take advantage of that. He would not be waiting around for the penny to drop.

He would leave, he would leave immediately. But before he went he would make them remember him. He would play one last prank on all of them. They would curse the day they ever decided to cross Sirius Black.

"Kreacher", he called and with a pop his twisted house elf appeared.

"Filthy master is calling Kreacher. What is filthy...?"

"Shut up Kreacher", snapped Sirus and Kreacher's mouth snapped shut on whatever he was about to say.

"Listen to me carefully", said Sirius. "I have decided to leave. Once I do I want you to lock down the house. No one is to be allowed to enter. Set the wards to a complete lock down. Hell, do whatever you want to do to keep people out, in fact if worst comes to worst and you are unable to keep people out then I want you to move all the valuables into the basement. Then I want you to demolish the house by destroying all the support columns. I'll be damned if I let them continue to use my house."

"Kreacher can keep the nasty mudbloods and blood traitors out. Oh, Mistress will be so pleased that the filthy wizards will no longer be using the house."

"Fine, but if you do end up demolishing the house, then you can come and find me. Until then you can stay here and make sure that nobody breaks in."

Sirius was rather pleased with himself. Let Dumbledore run around and arrange for another headquarters. That was not the prank he had in mind though. No, his prank would be aimed at both sides of this stupid war. So Dumbledore thought that Voldemort was after something in the Ministry. Well, this wizard would be making a stop at the Ministry before he left for the islands. It was time to show them what a true Marauder could do.

**~oo00oo~**

Hermione Granger was in the library as she usually was at that time of day. She was looking up defence spells as once again they had a horribly incompetent professor for Defence against the Dark Arts. This one truly took the cake. Umbridge was a vile despicable woman who was refusing to teach them anything. Sit and read your bloody useless textbook in class. You call that teaching? How on earth was she supposed to pass her DADA OWL with no practical training whatsoever?

She bet that the bloody pure bloods like Malfoy were getting additional training. Hell, they probably got tons of training over the summer. She remembered only too well how Draco Malfoy had been able to conjure up a snake during that duelling club that Lockhart had arranged. They had never been taught anything like that in DADA. So how could Malfoy have done that unless he was getting trained over the summers?

If only Harry were here. Surely he would be able to do something. Surely...a wave of dizziness suddenly swept over her. She blinked slowly in confusion, suddenly bewildered and filled with a sense of total confusion.

What had she been thinking about? She frowned; it was not like her to lose her train of thought like that.

What had she been...oh yes, how there was absolutely no one looking out for the interests of Muggleborn students like her.

Dumbledore had failed yet again to provide a suitable teacher and without training in Defence - The muggleborns were sitting ducks for all the bloody Death Eaters out there. If Voldemort came back...and according to Dumbledore's announcement at the end of term last year, he had in fact returned...It was going to be a bloody slaughter.

She suddenly felt a rising sense of panic. Oh dear god. Why had she even returned to Hogwarts? Really, what was keeping her here?

Here, where as a muggleborn student she was the target of every junior Death Eater with a grudge.

Malfoy, for one, had been targeting her ever since first year and everyone knew his father used to be a Death Eater. And how had the staff responded to that? Why, they had made him a prefect of course.

The sheer...the bloody stupidity...the level of incompetence on the part of the staff...to let something...someone so utterly vile…

She felt like screaming in rage. If she had been anywhere else but the library she would have indeed screamed.

Why? Why had she returned to Hogwarts this year? Even a person with a fraction of her IQ could tell that there was trouble brewing on the horizon. The magical world was on the precipice of another war. Why was she sticking around for that?

A part of her wished that her parents had thrown McGonagall out on her ear when she had first turned up at their doorstep prattling on about magic and witches and...

Not once had she ever mentioned the discrimination against muggleborns. Not one word was ever said about trolls or basilisks or dementors or wizards hiding as rats or bloody Dark Lords who were capable of coming back from the dead and announcing their return by murdering innocent handsome Hufflepuffs. The...the...there were no words really. Fine bloody head of house she was. Turn a turtle into a teapot, why don't you. That will keep you safe from people like Voldemort.

She needed to write her parents a letter. It should not be that hard to convince them All she really had to do was show them any one of the books that spoke about the last war and tell them that another one was about to start.

Yes, it was time to look into other options. After all, there really was nothing keeping her here at Hogwarts. Truth be told, what with teachers like Snape, Binns, Trelawney, Umbridge and yes even Hagrid, no matter how nice he was personally, the man was a bit of a joke as a teacher - It really should not be too hard to find a magical school that was better than Hogwarts.

**~oo00oo~**

Albus Dumbledore could not believe the situation he found himself in. How could this have happened? How was it possible that no one could remember anything about the Boy-Who-Lived? What could have possibly caused such an utterly devastating turn of events?

The Order of the Phoenix was meeting in his office at Hogwarts as for some reason they had been unable to get into Grimauld Place. He did not have time to wonder about Sirius Black though. He would deal with him later. For now it was imperative that he concentrated on understanding exactly what had happened.

Speaking of Grimauld Place, perhaps that was it. Perhaps...yes, that might explain exactly what had happened.

"Could it be that the Boy-Who-Lived has managed to hide his identity under the Fidelius Charm?" he asked.

There was a stunned silence as the people in the room digested his words.

"Is that even possible?" asked Moody.

"Filius, what do you think?" asked Dumbledore of the tiny Professor of Charms.

"It would be unusual", said Professor Flitwick, "but it might be possible that he has done just that. It certainly would explain why none of us can remember any details about the Boy-Who-Lived. Order Headquarters for instance would have been well known to former members of the family that owned it. Yet, none of them would be able to even see it or remember where it existed after it was placed under the Fidelius Charm."

"So, what are you telling me?" asked Moody. "Is the Boy-Who-Lived currently invisible to anyone who is not party to his secret?"

"That would depend on what the charm is tied to I think. When we cast the charm at Headquarters, the secret was tied to the location. The wording used could have conceivably been tied to the fact that Headquarters was in fact - Headquarters. That would have simply prevented anyone from disclosing which building was used for the Headquarters of the Order. However the intention of the caster was to hide the building, which is why no one who is not party to the secret can even perceive it. I don't think anyone would make themselves permanently invisible though. I don't see how anyone could live like that. No, in this case, I would say that the intent of the person who cast the charm was simply to hide who the Boy-Who-Lived is", said Dumbledore.

"How come we remember that there is a Boy-Who-Lived then?" asked Dedalus Diggle. "Shouldn't that have been hidden by the Fidelius as well?"

"Like I said, it could be the intent of the caster to hide only his own identity and that he is who he is. On the other hand perhaps...the caster might have intended to hide his very existence, but...from what I do know that the Boy-Who-Lived is very famous. That has not changed. So perhaps the caster did not have enough power to eradicate all memory of his existence. The charm has managed to hide the true identity of the Boy-Who-Lived however. I would hazard a guess that the ones most strongly affected would be people who thought of the boy as simply...well people who would not think of him as the Boy-Who-Lived would be the worst affected."

"Fine, whatever…How do we break it?" asked Tonks. She was still tired and cranky from the long trip by international portkey.

"The Fidelius has never been broken unless the Secret Keeper has allowed it to be broken. Not once has anyone broken the Charm without the cooperation of the secret keeper", said Professor Flitwick.

"So, what then? What option does that leave us? How do we find the Boy-Who-Lived?" asked Tonks.

"For that matter, should we even bother? Shouldn't we be concentrating on You-Know-Who? Who cares about the Boy-Who-Lived?" said Moody. "I mean, surely if we can't find him, then neither can You-Know-Who. So, whoever it is, they should be safe enough. Why don't we just forget about him and concentrate on the real problem - Voldemort."

And with that, the Order members started a loud and boisterous argument that would go on for hours.

**~oo00oo~**

Dumbledore had finally gotten exasperated with all the bickering and called an end to the meeting. None of them had anything interesting to say after all. Nor did any of them know the true reason why it was absolutely imperative to find the Boy-Who-Lived.

Now he was hip deep in newspapers and records trying to dig up clues about the Boy-Who-Lived. Unfortunately for him the charm was working only too well.

Oh, there were a great many references to the Boy-Who-Lived. There were many articles mentioning him, but wherever there should have been a name or even just a description of any sort - That information was hidden. He did not know if all that information had been erased from the papers or it was just the charm, making him unable to read that information even though it should have been right in front of him.

Even his tracker - All the diagnostic charms he had tried reported that it was working perfectly. Yet to his eyes - the dials were just spinning randomly. Clearly the Fidelius would prevent anyone from perceiving any information that would help them find the boy.

Perhaps he should attack that problem from another angle. An oblique approach might work better.

What exactly did he know about the Boy-Who-Lived?

He knew the rough birth date of the boy. Luckily, he could still remember the prophecy. He could not remember who his parents were though. The only child he knew off who matched the criteria mentioned in the prophecy was Neville Longbottom. Unfortunately, he knew that Neville was not the one. No, he was absolutely certain that Neville Longbottom was not the Boy-Who-Lived.

So, what did that leave? He used to be a student here. That was still clear. He was supposed to have rejoined Hogwarts but had not shown up this term. Checking the student rolls had been useless. There were no students currently in the rolls whose location he was not aware off. There were some inconsistencies in the records though.

For example, there was a note about the sorting of the students from the year that the Boy-Who-Lived was supposed to have been sorted. The note still said that five boys were sorted into Gryffindor even though the official records only listed four names.

So, he was a Gryffindor! What else could he deduce about the Boy-Who-Lived? There were newspaper articles which talked about his participation in the Triwizard Tournament. He could not remember a fourth participant, even his pensieve had been useless there, but...he had records that said that four dragons had been transported to Hogwarts for the First Task. Similarly, he had records of four hostages for the second task.

Wait a minute...four hostages! The hostages would have been people close to the competitors. Where was that list? Yes, here it was - Miss Chang and Miss Granger were the hostages for Diggory and Krum. They were chosen as they had been the Champion's partners for the Yule ball. Miss Delacour's sister had been chosen as her hostage. Which left Ron Weasley as the hostage for the Boy-Who-Lived...and two of the other Champion's had their partners from the ball as hostages.

Hmmmm. Obviously the Boy-Who-Lived had been very close to Mr. Weasley. He would have to talk to the boy. He sent a message to Professor McGonagall asking her to send the boy to his office. Fifteen minutes later there was a knock on his door.

"Come in, come in", he cried. "Thank you for coming Mr. Weasley. I was hoping that you could help me out with a problem we are having."

"Of course, Professor", said Ron Weasley. He was a bit nervous. He had never been called to the Headmaster's Office before.

"Now my boy, the thing is...well, I don't suppose you remember anything about the Boy-Who-Lived", asked Dumbledore.

"Uhhh..." said Ron, a look of utter bewilderment upon his face.

"No, no, of course you wouldn't. I will explain why later, if you wish. However you might have some information that might be able to help me. I cannot impress enough upon you how important this is. I need...Well, it is a bit of a delicate matter, but I implore you - I need you to be absolutely candid with me. Do you think you can do so?" asked Dumbledore.

"Sure, I guess", answered Ron.

"Excellent, excellent, well, without further ado - My dear boy, I'm afraid I need you to tell me exactly what you find attractive in a boy."

"What? In a boy?" asked Ron. "I'm not sure what you mean, Professor."

"Well, my dear boy, although I am certain that you no longer remember it - There is proof that you were once extremely close to the Boy-Who-Lived. That being said, if you could tell me what kind of boy it is that you like. You know - the type of features that you would find attractive in a boyfriend. Then at the very least we might have a rough physical description of the Boy-Who-Lived. Surely, he would match the type of person you find yourself attracted to."

Ron stared at his Headmaster. What the hell was he talking about? Boyfriend...Did he mean? No, he didn't. He couldn't. Bloody hell - he did mean that, yes, yes he did.

"I AM NOT A BLOODY POOF", yelled the boy. His ears and face were turning redder than his hair.

Oh dear, thought Dumbledore. The poor boy, he seemed to be one of those who are uncomfortable with their orientation. Still, he was convinced that he was right. While he had been waiting for the boy to come to his office he had quickly taken a peek at his memories of the ball in his pensieve. While it was true that Ron Weasley had escorted a girl, one of the Patil twins, to the ball, the boy had not shown the slightest interest in her. Even Dumbledore could see that the girl was objectively quite attractive, most teenage boys would have been all over her. So what other explanation could there be? He would just have to persuade the boy to come clean.

"Come now, my dear boy. There is no shame in it. I have known many absolutely splendid wizards of your...aah...persuasion. I quite understand, at your age...well many wizards are not comfortable with disclosing their true natures, even though they would be far happier if they just accepted who they were. Still, as I said, I completely understand your reticence. Do not worry, I will be extremely discrete. No one will learn about your preferences from me", said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling away at the boy.

Ron stared at Dumbledore in sheer horror and disbelief. His mouth worked and worked but absolutely nothing came out.

**~oo00oo~**

The howler that Dumbledore would eventually get from Molly Weasley, after she learnt of his interrogation of her son, would have shattered his eardrums if he had not managed to silence it in the nick of time.

**~oo00oo~**

*Bonus points if you get this reference.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

Voldemort was in a terrible state. He was convinced that somehow, someone had broken into the Malfoy home which he was currently using as his base of operations and managed to obliviate him. He had thoroughly questioned all his minions, half of them were even now shaking and trembling from the after-effects of his rather liberal use of the cruciatus curse, but he had not learned anything. All of his Death Eaters seemed to have been obliviated as well. Not one of them could recall the slightest detail about the boy who lived.

How? How had they done it? Who could have had the skill and power to break into Malfoy Manor and obliviate them all? Why would they even do that? If his enemies had the power to reach him here, why had they not simply killed him or even made the attempt? It was most puzzling.

He felt strange. He had been, for a very long time, fixated on his revenge against the one responsible for his previous downfall and now...now he could not remember anything at all about him. He could not even remember how he had been defeated all those years ago. All that was left were fragments. Pettigrew had been the one to lead him to the boy. He remembered that. He remembered a house but he could not remember whose house it had been. Nor could he remember the battle for surely there had been one. How else could he have been defeated? How else had he been forced to spend all those years wandering the earth as a wraith?

Then he had returned, used the boy's blood in the ritual to resurrect himself. How was it possible that he could not remember someone whose blood was even now a part of his body? How?

He would have to strengthen the wards around Malfoy Manor. On the other hand...yes, it would be much better to find a new place to operate out of. Someone had already managed to reach him here. No...This place was no longer safe. He would need to find a safer, better-protected stronghold.

Where was his spy? Where was Snape? He should have reported in by now. This was the last chance he would give the man. If he did not have any information on this matter then he would not be leaving Malfoy Manor, not alive at any rate.

Where was...aah there he was now. He took his bloody time about it too. His hand tightened upon his wand. Snape had better have some useful information or else.

Half an hour later, Voldemort was glaring at the rapidly retreating sight of Snape as he rushed from the room, his black robes billowing behind him. Voldemort eased his aching grip from his wand. He had been so sorely tempted to work his frustrations out on Snape, but the greasy bugger had managed to provide some information after all. He would let him live for now but as soon as he no longer needed him he would...

Damn it, so the Boy-Who-Lived had managed to hide his identity under the Fidelius Charm. Now, that was unexpected. He could not remember exactly when it had happened, but he vaguely remembered encountering the Fidelius Charm once before. He remembered not even being able to see the house that had been hidden by the charm until the secret keeper had let him in on the secret. Had it been the same house that Pettigrew had taken him to? Why could he not remember the details?

What if...What if the Boy-Who-Lived was invisible in the same way? He could be anywhere. Damn it, he could be anyone. He could walk right up to him on the street and not one of his people would be able to see him. The first they would know of it would be when they would be showered by the gore from his exploding head.

He would have to prepare another stronghold soon. He could not be exposed like this. If the boy knew where he was...No, the blasted boy...the boy could sneak up on him at any time. He had to protect himself.

Voldemort kept pacing the room, peering fearfully into the corners as he walked. More wards. That's what he needed. A lot more wards.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry Potter needed a new name. He had initially planned on just changing his surname but he found that the Fidelius charm would not even let him introduce himself as 'Harry'. So here he was, holed up in yet another house whose owners had gone on vacation, trying to come up with a halfway decent name. He already had a long list written down on the paper in front of him, but he was not happy with any of them.

He tapped out a staccato rhythm with his pen as he looked around, not really noticing his surroundings, luxurious though they were. While he still had more than enough money to be able to afford motel rooms, he had found it easier to just have Dobby find a house where the owners were on vacation. That way he didn't have to deal with any motel clerks or answer any questions as to why a young boy like him was travelling alone.

Dobby was quite good at finding temporarily empty houses and for some reason he seemed to find a lot of beach-houses. The one Harry was currently staying at was in Malibu and was extremely comfortable. A few notice me not charms tossed around the property and he didn't even have to worry about any neighbours.

"Barry? Barry Topper? Cotter? Barry Trotter? Barry Allen?" he thought. "Nah, Barry...doesn't seem right. Larry - nah, Larry makes me think of sleazy upstairs neighbours for some reason. Parry...Perry...White? Perry Mason? Damn it, coming up with a good name is bloody hard."

Maybe he should just go with something like John Smith or did that sound too much like an alias?

Perhaps he could pull a Voldemort and create some sort of anagram. Hmmm, what sort of anagram could he form from Harry Potter - Hatty Porrer? Party R. Hoter? Parry Hotter? Ratty Ropher?

Dear God, what was wrong with him? Ratty? Really? Perhaps the isolation was getting to him. Well, he would start getting out more once he had his identity sorted out. He had to have a name to introduce himself to people by after all. Once he had that he was going to go to Disneyland. Yeah, Disneyland first, then Universal and SeaWorld and everything else he could pack in. But, first things first, he needed a name and the documentation to prove it.

At his age, all he really needed was a Birth Certificate and some school records. Both of those were easily faked using magic. Getting them into the system was not easy but he thought that it was still quite doable. Harry had spent several weeks covered by his invisibility cloak, sneaking around county record offices, hospitals and schools and he knew that he was perfectly capable of sneaking into the relevant offices and planting his fake records.

The paper versions at least - they were easy. Harry had already conjured copies of old birth certificates and school records that he had liberated from various filing cabinets. Creating copies of them was ridiculously easy if you knew a few spells. Duplication charms coupled with a bit of transfiguration and he had a complete set of paper records, ready and waiting for the insertion of his new name.

The computer records would be more difficult. Harry, having spent the last few years in a school where there wasn't a single piece of working electronics, knew absolutely nothing about computers. Even his old muggle school had barely covered the basics with them and he had forgotten most of what he had learned at the time. Still, by eavesdropping around the government offices he had managed to learn some things. He had learned that he there was someone called a deebee admin who managed the computer records. So, theoretically at least this deeebee person would be able to insert the data into the computers. The question was - How could he get this deebee person to do it? The Imperious curse would have been the obvious choice and though Harry had seen it demonstrated the year before by the Fake Moody, he did not feel comfortable performing something classified as an Unforgivable curse.

No, he would not do that unless he ran out of all other options. Right now, the best option seemed to be a compulsion charm. These could theoretically make a person perform a specific action and they could be pre cast on objects as well. He was a little wary of these as well. Although they weren't classified as an unforgivable, they still seemed have nearly the same affect as an Imperius Curse. Still, at this point they seemed to be the only choice available to him.

So all Harry had to do was create a note, say with his fake birth details and new name and charm it with the compulsion charm before leaving it on the deebee's desk. Then, he could get the deebee to enter in his birth details in the correct whatchamacallit without even thinking twice about it. Compulsion charms weren't even that hard to cast. Harry had already learned what he needed to do to cast one correctly and had tested it with an innocuous note to an unsuspecting muggle that made them wash their car rather more thoroughly than was required.

So, everything was more or less set up, all he really needed now was a bloody name. In truth, he needed two names, one for him and one for Dobby. He wouldn't have bothered with an identity for Dobby, except for the fact that someone his age needed a legal guardian. He could probably rig up some records of his being emancipated but then he would still have to deal with things like landlords perhaps not being willing to rent out apartments to fifteen year old teenage boys. No, it would be easier if Dobby had the identity of an older man, probably someone who could be Harry's father. That way, Social Services would never think to ask about the fifteen year old boy living alone. No, they would just see a single father and his son.

He had even managed to get a hold of a bracelet with a built in glamour charm from one of the many magical shops that were scattered all over the United States. All Dobby had to do was slip it onto his arm and presto - everyone would see a middle-aged man. Hell, he would even start sounding like a middle-aged man, albeit one with a rather unique way of talking and a tendency to refer to himself in the third person.

The only real problem with needing an adult identity for Dobby was that he would also need to create fake tax records. Still, that should not be too difficult either. Once he had the birth certificates in place, the tax records should not be much harder, just another government office to break into and that was ridiculously easy if you possessed an invisibility cloak and knew the unlocking charm. Bank records would probably be more difficult but with a little bit of luck he would not need them.

Once he had his identity sorted, he would be enrolling in one of the local high schools. At this point, he had absolutely no intention of ever going back to the magical world, so getting a proper muggle education would no doubt serve him far better. A complete set of fake school records and transcripts was also ready and waiting for his name to be inserted. With them, it should be easy to join one of the local schools as a transfer student. All he needed was that name.

He yelled out to Dobby, who was busy grooming Hedwig, "Hey Dobby, could you stop fussing around with Hedwig? I don't think she needs to have her talons polished quite so much. I wanted to ask you what you would like your fake name to be. What about something like Doberto 'Call me Dobby' Elfuccine? We could be Italian...No...Yeah, I guess not...Elfuccine does sound like it could be some sort of pasta. Maybe Dobby could be a surname? Something like...Dobbins? How does that sound? You could be Bob...Bob Dobbins and I could be Jim Dobbins. Jim Dobbins...How does that sound?"

**~oo00oo~**

One of the defining events in the history of the British Magical World started rather simply. It started with a simple conversation. One that a young witch called Lavender Brown had with one of the girls who shared her dorm.

Lavender had walked into the dorm, to drop off her books after classes had finished for the day, she was surprised by the sight of Hermione Granger looking rather lost and disconsolate upon her bed. Now Lavender, while she had never been particularly close to Hermione was not one to leave someone who was looking so upset alone. The others in the school might have called her gossipy, or dismissive of her intelligence, but none of them would have ever called her mean spirited. So of course, the first thing she did was to rush to Hermione's side to try to comfort her.

"Oh Hermione," she cried, "what's the matter? Is it Ron? Are you upset about the whole...you know?"

"Ron?" asked a surprised Hermione. "No, why would I be upset about him?"

"Oh, I should have known. How silly of me. Obviously, you must have known about him all along. No wonder the two of you are such good friends. Witch Weekly does say that every girl should have one; you know they had an article just last month in which they said that they make the very best friends. Tell me; is he any good at shopping? Oh, but he must have an excellent eye for fashion. Why, that even explains his robes at the ball. We should have realised that he must have been making some sort of bold fashion statement," babbled Lavender.

Hermione was confused. What on earth was the girl talking about?

"You know, I don't know why everyone is acting so surprised after all. It should have been obvious after the way he treated Padma at the Yule Ball. You know we thought for a while that he did that because he was interested in you," giggled Lavender, "but it's so obvious now, how could we not have seen it at the time? He must have been madly in love with Krum. The way he kept staring at him all year, the way he got so upset with you just because you went to the ball with Krum. The poor boy must have been heartbroken."

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. Was Lavender really saying what she was saying? Ron and Viktor Krum? Really? Huh? No, it couldn't be. Not Ron. But...She supposed it did make a certain amount of sense. He did act very enamoured with Krum at the world cup. And then there was the fact that Ron had never shown the slightest interest in her before he acted like such a prat after the ball. So, perhaps her conclusion at the time had been way off base. Still, she would have thought the boy would have confided in her at some point. She was supposed to be his best friend after all. Part of her wanted to go and confront Ron right away, but then...did it really matter? No, not really. Not at this point.

"No, it's not Ron," she said simply.

"Oh, then what is it?" asked Lavender.

"I...I just got a letter back from my parents. I'm...I'm going to be leaving Hogwarts, I won't be coming back from the Christmas break," explained Hermione.

"WHAT? No, No I can't...Really? I can't believe that. But...But why? Why are you leaving?" asked a completely shocked Lavender Brown.

And then, Hermione Granger told Lavender Brown exactly why she felt she had to leave.

A little while later - Dean Thomas heard the news from Lavender. If Hermione was leaving...and she was the smartest girl...hell, she was the smartest person he knew in the entire school. If she thought that it was necessary to leave? Perhaps he should...Yes, He would have to write to his mother as well. And he really...yes, he should definitely talk to Colin as well, Hermione was a...well she wasn't really the most social of girls, she might not have thought of telling anyone and someone had to look out for the other muggleborns after all. He grimaced, no matter his suspicions about his real father; he really had no way of proving that he was a half-blood and not a muggleborn.

Justin Finch-Fletchely was also surprised when he heard the news. "You're telling me Granger is leaving?" he asked in disbelief.

"Granger the Gryffindor? That Granger? Granger - The girl who didn't leave after she was nearly killed by a troll. The one who didn't leave even though she was petrified by a basilisk. The one who was nearly kissed by dementors and still came back the next year. 'SHE' thinks it's too dangerous to stay at Hogwarts. Bloody hell!"

He stared off into the distance for a bit. Oh, bloody bollocking trolls - If Granger thought it was too dangerous...Bloody hell, what the hell was he doing sticking around. He ran towards the Owlery as fast as he could. He would have to write his parents right away.

**~oo00oo~**

Luna Lovegood was busy looking for her shoes that had gone missing when she heard about the students that were leaving Hogwarts. It made her think about her own situation. Why was she staying at Hogwarts? She had hoped that this would be the year that she would finally make some friends. She had hoped that perhaps by now at least one of her classmates would have matured enough to look past their differences. She had hoped...but no, none of that had come to pass. People were still stealing and hiding her possessions. Why did they seem to find tormenting her so funny?

If the others could leave...Well, why on earth should she stay? What was keeping her here? It would be quite easy to persuade her father that staying around Britain was no longer healthy for them. It wasn't like he couldn't publish the Quibbler from anywhere else after all. He could work from anywhere; even moving the printing presses was not at all difficult when you had magic.

So yes - It was time. It was time to give up on Hogwarts, time to find another school. One where the pupils weren't so small minded.

**~oo00oo~**

Dirk Creswell, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, frowned at the reports that were littering his desk at the Ministry of Magic. He had not believed the rumours regarding the resurrection of Voldemort but now...Now, he had reports that nearly all the muggleborn students had left. All of them, every single muggleborn student had left Hogwarts.

The thing was, even though he had not believed the rumours - Something had happened at the school last year during the TriWizard tournament, something that resulted in the death of a student. Whatever had happened, the students at the school would have been the ones best placed to know the truth. And now...all the muggleborns, and quite a few of the half-bloods as well, were withdrawing from Hogwarts. That certainly lent an enormous amount of credence to the rumours.

No one else in the Ministry was really paying any attention and the official Ministry position regarding the events of last year...well, that was starting to look like a steaming pile of dragon dung. So, that meant...Voldemort was back and if things happened like they had in the last war then...

He would have to talk to the other muggleborns. Perhaps Ted Tonks? Yes, he would go have a chat with him tonight. Ted would be a good sounding board.

**~oo00oo~**

Mary Cattermole was busy preparing dinner when her husband Reginald burst through the door. He seemed to be in quite a panic about something that he had heard at the Ministry. It took her quite a while to calm him down enough to get the full story out of him. By then she was in a bit of a panic herself. Luckily for her, her dear Reg was willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe. They would be leaving, leaving as soon as they gathered up the children and packed up the house.

**~oo00oo~**

Nymphadora Tonks was quite annoyed with her family. First, they give her that ridiculous name and always insisted on calling her by it, no matter how much she told them she hated it. Now, they had to go into a panic after her father had a conversation with one of his friends. Really, what was wrong with them? Hadn't she been saying the same thing for months?

No, let's not listen to our daughter, what the hell does she know after all? It's not like she's an auror. It's not like she's been working closely with Dumbledore and might actually know what she's talking about.

No, they wait until some bloody idiot from the Ministry puts them in a panic and then it's all - Oh no, dearest Dora, you have to quit your job and leave with us right away.

She had refused, of course. She had worked hard to get where she was and she wasn't about to run away at the first sign of danger. She was an auror and she would bloody well stay and fight. She would not be running anywhere.

That resolve had lasted for a few hours. Then her mother had started crying and her father had given her that disappointed look and...Bloody hell, damn parents and their damned guilt trips.

She finished tossing the last of her possessions into her trunk. She should have made her mother pack for her, she thought, as she angrily slammed the lid down on her trunk.

**~oo00oo~**

Fleur Delacour ripped up the letter offering her a position in the English branch of Gringotts. Really, she would have to be an absolute moron to move to England at this point. Everyone knew that there was a veritable flood of people leaving that country. Obviously, things were going from bad to worse over there. No, she would not be accepting any job in England. It would be far more sensible to take a job in Paris or even Berlin. Yes, perhaps she should apply for a job in Berlin.

**~oo00oo~**

Some of them left calmly. Some of them left in a rush. Some of them had the time to sell their homes and make proper arrangements for businesses and jobs. Some simply left with only the clothes upon their backs and the wands in their hands. It did not really matter. They were witches and wizards. They could make do. They could make do anywhere in the world. Anywhere but Britain.

The Great British Muggleborn Diaspora had started. Within a few months, there would not be a single muggleborn wizard or witch left in Britain.

What about the new muggleborns? They thought of that. The muggleborns of Britain may never have banded together. They may have never made much of a difference to the Ministry of Magic or the culture of the Magical World - but there was one thing they had always tried to do. They had always looked out for the other muggleborns like them as best as they could.

So, one of the last things that Dirk Cresswell and the few other muggleborns that worked at the Ministry did, was to steal the equipment that tracked incidents of accidental magic. This was the primary way that the Ministry tracked and identified muggleborns. This was the mechanism by which they were informed of who was to be offered a place at Hogwarts.

Without it, there was no way for the ministry to know of a wizard or witch that had not been born into a magical family. The equipment was old and ancient. It had been created centuries ago. It would take years, years of hard work and toil by the best researchers the Ministry had before they could come up with a replacement. Would a pureblood dominated Ministry find that effort worthwhile?

Every few years after that, representatives of the muggleborns who had left Britain would clandestinely sneak back into Britain and quietly make contact with the families of new muggleborns. It wasn't even as dangerous as it sounded, as they would travel by muggle means and the Ministry really had no way of tracking Muggle transportation.

The families were contacted and quietly apprised of the situation and the danger they were in. Help would be offered with relocation, finding new jobs and accommodation and schools for their magical children. Not surprisingly, all of them would soon be on a plane leaving Britain.

The Great British Muggleborn Diaspora began with a simple conversation between two teenage witches.

**~oo00oo~**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

Dumbledore burrowed his aching head into his hands. "Why?" he asked plaintively. "Why are they leaving?" he asked the room. It was filled with the teachers and staff of Hogwarts, almost everyone except for Umbridge, who thankfully was away at the Ministry. Someone snorted. Dumbledore didn't particularly care whom at this point. Truth be told he would prefer not to know.

"Do you really need to ask, Albus?" said Professor McGonagall. "What did you think would happen? You were the one who stood up in the Great Hall and announced that You-Know-Who is back. I'm just surprised that it took so long for them to decide to leave."

"B-But...B-But," sputtered Dumbledore. "That is no reason to leave Hogwarts. Surely the children know that they are safe here."

McGonagall snorted in disbelief. "Those children saw Cedric Diggory lying dead on the Quidditch Pitch last year. I'm afraid no one believes your assurances of Hogwarts' safety any more, Albus."

"Perhaps if I spoke to them? Do you think I could persuade them to stay?" asked Dumbledore, rather plaintively.

"I doubt it," answered Flitwick. "Your reputation with them has taken a bit of a beating over the last few years. I mean - it's just been one thing after the other hasn't it. We've had a Basilisk petrifying students. Dementors invading the Quidditch Pitch and the Hogwarts Express. Sirius Black waltzing in and out like he owned the place. Diggory's murder. The problem is, none of them have ever seen you do anything to keep them safe. The muggleborns particularly don't trust you, not after the way they were targeted during the whole Chamber of Secrets fiasco. They feel that keeping the school open during that time put them unnecessarily at risk. It didn't help that they only saw action taken after Miss Weasley disappeared. They feel that just shows the staff's blatant disregard for the well being of anyone who is not a pureblood." He raised a hand to ward off Dumbledore's furious denials. "Their words Albus, not mine."

"From the rumours I've heard it's not just the students at Hogwarts either. Muggleborn from all over Britain are leaving," said Professor Sprout, rather sadly.

"I still can't believe that. Why-Why are they...I mean, even at the height of the last war against Voldemort, people stayed. They stayed and they fought," said Dumbledore.

"Last time was different, Albus," said Fliwick. "The last time, the Ministry was doing something. They had aurors fighting against Voldemort. People had hope that he would be defeated. Now - Now they know he's back and they know that no one, not one person is doing anything about it. Why would they stick around? What would be the point of waiting?"

"I think that persuading the muggleborn to stay is a lost cause. That particular ship sailed a long time ago. What we need to do now, is figure out a way to keep Hogwarts open. With things the way they are, I'm not sure we'll have the funds to stay open next year," said McGonagall.

"Surely you must be mistaken Minerva, the Muggleborn only make up about twenty percent of the students. We can weather a twenty percent reduction in student fees. We may have to tighten our belts here and there but surely...Can't we?" asked Dumbledore.

"You haven't thought things through, Albus. Yes, so far it's mostly the muggleborn that have withdrawn from Hogwarts but the half-bloods - they make up another forty percent of the students. Most of them will leave soon as well. We will not be able to stay open next year, not with a sixty percent reduction in student fees," said McGonagall.

"Surely the half-bloods will stay," said Dumbledore, "they have never been as discriminated against and..."

"And none of that makes one iota of a difference, Albus," interrupted McGonagall. "You're forgetting one thing - What is a half-blood anyway? It is someone with either a muggleborn or a muggle for a parent. Pomona already told you that the muggleborn are leaving Britain, and anyone who has a muggle for a spouse knows that the Pureblood bigots classify them as blood traitors. That means that most, if not all, of the parents of our half-blood students will soon be leaving Britain as well. Do you really think that they will leave their children behind?"

"Well...then...we will just have to raise the fees then," said Albus Dumbledore.

McGonagall frowned, her face looking haggard and lined with worry. "We will have to more than double the tuition fees for the remaining students. Unfortunately, that means that some of the parents will be unable to pay...which means more students dropping out...which means raising the fees again...The only way we will be able to stay open is if the Ministry agrees to subsidise us. Unfortunately, with the way things are between you and Fudge..."

Dumbledore wanted to weep. He truly did. He still could not believe the sheer enormity of the disaster that was looming over their heads. Damn Fudge. If only would get his head out of the sand. Couldn't he see that this would lead to the absolute ruin of Magical Britain. Couldn't he see that he had to do something? Anything?

**~oo00oo~**

Jim Dobbins, the boy formerly known as Harry Potter, wanted to bang his head against a wall in frustration. He was sitting at a desk in a rather lovely and comfortable bedroom in a small flat rented by him and Dobby, in their personas of Bob and Jim Dobbins. They could afford a much bigger place but the small flat suited him and Dobby just fine. The reason they could afford a much larger place did not have anything to do with his large pile of galleons that Harry had barely made a dent in. No, it had to do with a little idea that Harry had had when he came across a garage sale one day. Initially, it had just been a way to keep Dobby busy. He had not wanted the little elf to be bored while he attended school after all. So he and Dobby had started buying up old furniture from garage sales. A mix of elf magic and Harry's liberal use of the Reparo charm made short work of restoring even the most decrepit piece of furniture to a wonderfully pristine state. Harry was still somewhat shocked at the sheer amount of money that was currently rolling in from what had originally started as a spur of the moment decision to buy a couple of battered second-hand desks for their flat. Who knew that you could make so much money from selling furniture?

That had nothing to do with his current state of frustration though. No, he was frustrated because books were covering his desk; his desk was in fact, absolutely groaning under the weight of dozens upon dozens of textbooks.

Catching up on a non-magical education after four years at Hogwarts was not proving to be easy. At times like these, he almost wished that he had stayed at Hogwarts. At least there, he had Hermione to help him whenever he had difficulty with his schoolwork.

Still, he supposed that a little bit of studying, scratch that, make that - a lot of studying, was a small price to pay for the knowledge that now he was absolutely safe.

He just hoped that he could get his grades up in time. It would totally suck if he had to attend summer school. Not only would it be a pain but it would also mean that he would miss out on magical summer camp.

That was another one of the truly brilliant things about the States. It turned out that no one here went to a magic only school like Hogwarts had been. Oh, they did have one in Salem, but only the most die hard traditionalists ever enrolled their kids there. Most of the American Wizards, he had met so far, held a great deal of disdain and contempt for the few people that still opted for the Salem School. They considered them hopelessly old fashioned and doomed to a life of uselessness.

The majority of the magical population in the United States simply attended their normal high school along with everybody else. During the school year some of them were home schooled in magic as well but the majority simply concentrated on the standard school curriculum.

Then, in summer, they would attend Summer Camps where they would spend a couple of incredibly hectic months undergoing intensive and comprehensive training in all areas of Magic.

This did not mean that they were unable to use magic for most of the year. No, on the contrary - magical American children were encouraged to use their magic as much as possible in the privacy of their own homes. The Americans believed that this built up the child's power and strength in the Magical Arts. It was only the training, in new spells and magical theory, that was restricted to the summer camps.

Harry had already signed up for one of the most well regarded magical training courses at just such a camp and he was looking forward to it eagerly. The one he had chosen even had an excellent Quidditch program and he was bouncing in anticipation of getting on a broom again. Flying was the thing he still missed the most after all. He had tried surfing as a substitute and had discovered that catching a wave on a board was as good as flying when it came to the sheer adrenalin rush. Now, if only he could stay on the board for more than ten seconds at a time.

**~oo00oo~**

Hermione leaned back in her chair and luxuriated in the warmth of the sun's rays. That was the best bit of coming to Australia, she thought. They had left England in the middle of winter but here in the Southern Hemisphere it was summer. True, that didn't always mean much here in Melbourne where the weather was notoriously fickle. "All four seasons in one day," was the phrase that she had heard repeated by countless Australians. They even managed to sound proud about the fact. Still, the weather today was absolutely lovely and she had just finished browsing in a wonderful bookstore in St. Kilda and was finishing up her outing at one of the many cake shops that lined Acland Street. Even Hermione, the child of two dentists, had not been able to resist trying one of the incredibly delicious looking slices of cake.

She still couldn't believe how differently the Australians did things. There was no hiding away in an alley only accessible through a dingy pub. No, here the wizards and witches lived right amidst the normal non-magical population. Even the bookshop, which had one of the best collections of magical books she had ever seen, had been an absolute revelation. Not only was it a magical bookshop but it was a magical bookshop that catered to muggles as well. Instead of hiding the whole store behind muggle repelling charms, as would have been the norm in England, here it was simply the books that were spelled. All the magical books would look like ordinary textbooks to any muggle that came across them. Particularly dense organic chemistry and quantum mechanics textbooks, according to her Mother, who had accompanied her.

Yes, she thought that she could come to love living here in Australia.

The only blemish on her otherwise rosy outlook was a little matter with her new school. It was a great school, filled with cheerful students and staff, and she had already made tentative friends with a couple of the students she had met so far. No, the only problem was that as soon as she told them she was transferring from Hogwarts, the very first thing the staff did was to sign her up for the Remedial Courses in both Defence and Potions.

No amount of begging and pleading would convince them otherwise. According to them any student from Hogwarts had to be trained up in the basics for Defence and Potions, no matter how good her grades were or how high her IQ might be.

She growled under her breath. She, Hermione Granger, was being forced to take remedial classes. The...the indignity...the sheer bloody outrageousness of that fact made her want to scream. Part of her wanted to go back to England just to kick Dumbledore in the...Well, let's just say that he would be walking funny for days after she was through with him.

Still, hopefully she could test out of the remedial classes after some time. She would never be able to live with herself if she didn't.

**~oo00oo~**

Sirius Black was a very happy man. The weather was truly wonderful, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky and the sea was that incredibly lovely shade of iridescent blue that you only found in these parts of the world. He had a utterly delicious Mojito in his hand and his beach chair, which he had just settled into, had a perfect view of a group of girls in bikinis that were playing a spirited game of volleyball. Life did not get much better than this.

He had just placed an order for another Mojito when the mirror in his pocket buzzed. He grinned widely to himself; it looked like things were, in fact, getting better. The little trap he had set at the Ministry before leaving England had just been triggered. Months ago, a large black dog had sneaked through the Ministry and made its way into the Hall of Prophecies. Sirius snorted as he remembered how ridiculously easy it had been. It was truly pathetic how incompetent the Ministry was at times. He pulled out his mirror and relaxed back into his chair. He really should order some popcorn, he thought. That should go perfectly with what he was about to see on his mirror. Whatever the outcome, it was sure to be entertaining.

**~oo00oo~**

Voldemort was ecstatic, well part of him was. The rest of him was still furious at being forced to undertake this job himself. Still, he had done it. He and his Death Eaters had managed to sneak into the Ministry completely undetected. He was still incredibly annoyed at the incompetence of his minions. Damn them, damn them for not being able to retrieve one little prophecy. If they had been more competent he would not have been forced to come here himself. Still, that no longer mattered. He was here now and soon he would learn the full contents of the prophecy. The prophecy that had been the reason for his downfall all those years ago. The prophecy that he had yet to learn the full meaning of. Soon he would know, he would learn what the future held in store. Then there would be nothing and no one who could stop him. He would rule Britain and crush his enemies into dust.

He glided silently past towering shelves covered with small, dusty glass orbs. They glimmered dully in the light issuing from more candle-brackets set at intervals along the shelves. Like those in the circular room he had passed earlier, their flames were burning blue. The room was very cold. He looked at the end of the closest row. Beneath the branch of blue-glowing candles protruding from it glimmered the silver figure fifty-three. Not much further to go, he thought. The prophecy he was after was in row ninety-seven. Finally, he came to the row he sought and strode down it, peering at the tiny little yellow labels as he passed.

Then, he found it, there it was, right there on the shelf. He read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously, and below that:

_S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D._

_Dark Lord_

_and (?)_

His wand flicked out as he cast a series of ward detection charms. The security around the prophecies had been impossible to breach, at least by his minions, which was the reason he was here. Still, according to the information he had obtained so far, the prophecy should be readily accessible to the individuals they referred to.

His readings came back and displayed themselves as a set of glowing misty symbols. Hmm, what was there...Not much really, Just a couple of wards - There was the rather interesting ward which made the orb impossible to pick up. This was linked to an identity discerning ward which seemed to control it and enable and disable access to the orb as required. Also bundled in was a rather nifty madness-inducing curse set to inflict anyone who got past the other wards.

The Identity Ward might be problematic, he thought. After all, the prophecy was not labelled as Lord Voldemort or even Tom Riddle. It simply said 'Dark Lord and (?)'. Would the ward identify him as the Dark Lord the prophecy pertained to? Could any Dark Lord pick it up? Why on earth had they not labelled it with his proper name. At the very least, they could have written You-Know-Who if they were too terrified to write down his proper name. What on Earth was wrong with the useless...lazy...son of...frigging bureaucrats. Couldn't even label a prophecy correctly.

Well, there was only one way to find out, he thought as his hand reached out, moved forward slowly and...and…plucked the prophecy from its shelf. He heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed that the ward had indeed identified him as the one the prophecy referred to. Now to listen to it...he raised his wand and prepared to activate the orb.

Sirius Black grinned into his mirror as he saw the Dark Lord gripping the prophecy in his hand. He had added a few additions to the Hall of Prophecies. One of them had been another set of triggers built right on top of the existing security system. Being a marauder had really paid off there. He had hidden his spells well, barely existing, there was just the thinnest, tiniest, slenderest thread of magic leading from the ministries wards to his triggers. Hidden so well, that even the Dark Lord had missed them.

His triggers had been set to do a series of tasks as soon as the identity-discerning ward identified Lord Voldemort. The first task had been set to activate a communication mirror hidden among the shelves. This had notified Sirius who had pulled out his own mirror just in time to see Voldemort lifting the prophecy orb.

The second activated a few other things. There were quite a few items that Sirius had shrunk and secreted around the room the night he left England for good. He had shrunken down and hidden several things in dark dusty corners where they had lain undisturbed for all this time. Now they started expanding. Enlarging themselves back to their original sizes. Spherical shapes were popping into existence all over the room.

The final task had been to activate a charm very similar to that used by a certain red-haired woman whenever she wanted to send a message to any of her children that had not been behaving in the manner that she expected. Similar - in precisely the same way that a Howitzer is similar to a BB gun.

Just as Lord Voldemort was about to tap the dusty orb that was clutched in his hand with his wand, the final trigger activated and Lord Voldemort heard a sound. A sound that blared forth from every surface within the room. A sound that drove him to his knees as his ears exploded with pain and every bone in his body vibrated along with the sound waves. A voice, which could have been mistaken, just based on sheer volume alone, with the voice of god said -

"LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, LORD MOULDY SHORTS IS IN THE BUILDING"

Voldemort rose to his feet, his ears still ringing. A trap, it was a bloody trap, he thought. He had to leave; he had to escape the ministry. As long as no one saw him, there would be no proof that he had returned. He had to leave. He had to leave immediately. A tune started playing. A tune that he vaguely remembered from his childhood. His wand spat out a spell that coated his ears. It would protect his ears if the sound got loud again but should still let him hear normally. Then the words started - Sung to the tune of Mary had a little lamb.

_Voldemort wears mouldy shorts,_

_mouldy shorts, mouldy shorts._

Who dared? Who would dare? Who could possibly dare to mock him. HIM! The Dark Lord Voldemort!

_Voldemort wears mouldy shorts,_

He would kill them. He would kill them, their entire family and their pet dog as well. He would slaughter them and bathe in their blood.

_mouldy shorts, mouldy shorts._

He raced towards the exit from the room. He had to leave now. At least he still had the prophecy, he thought as he gazed at the dusty glass orb still clutched within his hand. That brief millisecond of distraction proved to be rather costly to the Dark Lord as it was at that very instant that a flying iron ball flew straight into his hand with force enough to break a normal man's hand. He was tougher than most men though and the ball barely bruised him. What it did was to knock the orb straight out of his hand.

The orb flew out of his hand and bounced upon the ground. Voldemort's wand flicked out as he prepared to summon the orb back to him. He was just a little too late as an iron ball smashed down right on top of it with enough force to shatter the stone tiles of the floor.

Voldemort stared in disbelief at the shattered fragments of the orb, after all that...he had been thwarted by a...by a damned BLUDGER!

_Voldemort has a teeny peeny,_

The bludger flew right at his head. He sneered, did they really expect a bludger to injure him. Casually, almost lazily, he fired off a blasting curse. It hit the bludger and obliterated it in an explosion of white dust.

White dust? That was odd. Bludgers were made of iron; the debris should not have been white. The force of the explosion had dissipated the dust in a fine cloud that was floating in the air. His eyes widened in realisation as he cast a spell. A full body shield would keep the dust away.

_teeny peeny, teeny peeny,_

Unfortunately for him, he had realised the danger just a bit too late and his shield did not keep all of the dust off him. Pure white crystalline powder was settling on him. Some landed on his exposed skin, his eyes and he could not help inhaling some of it.

_It's as small as it can be._

He was burning. He was coughing. His skin, his eyes, his nose and his throat. Everything burned. He could barely breathe. Vanishing charms had no effect. A scourgify had no effect. He was burning, burning, burning. He was blind. His men who had been guarding the door came running towards him. Purebloods to a man, they ran straight through the cloud of dust without stopping. Seconds later, they collapsed on the ground clawing at their skin, their eyes. They were going into convulsions and seizures, writhing on the floor in agony.

_Voldemort has a teeny peeny,_

A group of girls that had been playing volleyball on the beach were surprised by the howls of laughter coming from a dark-haired man. He was rolling around on the sand laughing his head off as he stared into what looked like a small mirror. They shrugged and went back to their game. There was always someone getting drunk on the beach.

"How do you like that, bitch?" laughed Sirius Black. "That, my friend, is pure capsaicin powder. Wonderful stuff, isn't it?" He would not stop laughing for a long time.

_teeny peeny, teeny peeny,_

_It's as small as it can be._

Voldemort lay on the ground. More bludgers were bouncing wildly of his shield and ricochetting off to inflict damage upon the room. He crawled to the door maintaining his shield by sheer force of will. He was the Dark Lord Voldemort. He would not be brought down by this.

_And everywhere that Voldy went,_

_Voldy went, Voldy went,_

_Everywhere that Voldy went,_

_His stink was sure to go._

**~oo00oo~**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10.**

* * *

Rufus Scrimgeour put his aching head in his hands. Whoever said 'be careful what you wish for' had been absolutely correct. Here he was, at the position he had lusted after for years, Minister of Magic, and so far, it was an utter nightmare.

You-Know-Who was back. That was an undeniable fact. Dozens of people had spotted him fleeing from the Ministry. His men, marked Death Eaters, had been found incapacitated in the Hall of Prophecies. Witnesses had spotted Bellatrix Lestrange helping him escape. No, there was no doubt about it - Voldemort was back.

Fudge had been tossed out on his arse immediately. The Wizengamot had called an emergency session and pushed through an impeachment hearing in record time. There was nothing else they could do - after all the ass had been insisting that Voldemort was not back all year. He had even been complicit in covering up evidence that proved he was back. Well, as soon as things had settled down, he would make sure that Fudge paid. Oh yes, Cornelius Fudge would pay dearly.

The Ministry building was currently totally unusable. The walls were still reverberating with some truly awful song about Voldemort. Whoever had done that was an insanely sick individual. Who on earth could come up with a hundred and twenty different verses (that they had counted so far)? All of them puerile and insulting to Voldemort. Only someone who was truly insane.

Then there was that poisonous white powder. It was everywhere. It seemed to have originated in the department of Mysteries but it had gotten into the ventilation system and now it was everywhere, in every single room, in the air, everywhere. It had been treated or spelled to be resistant to vanishing and cleaning spells, so all clean up efforts had been utterly useless so far. All he had to show for it was a dozen or so of the custodian staff in Saint Mungos, being treated for skin rashes and irritated eyes, racking up the medical bills. The Unspeakables were working on it now but they had already sent in a report stating that it would be months before the Ministry Offices were usable again.

The problem of course was that none of it made any sense. Why had Voldemort been in the Ministry? No one seemed to know. Who was responsible for the powder, the songs, the random destruction of furniture and artefacts by some blunt object or objects? No one knew. Voldemort might have been responsible for the powder but he would never charm the walls to sing insulting songs about himself. So who? Who could possibly be responsible?

So here he was, the new Minister of Magic for Great Britain, reduced to working out of a crappy rented office in Diagon Alley. Could things possibly get any worse?

**~oo00oo~**

Voldemort was sitting on a stool, utterly naked, every inch of his body slathered with salves and potions. He had tried lying down but he could not bear to have anything touching his skin which was still inflamed, burnt and raw, cracking in places and oozing pus. He even had to breathe through a cloth soaked in potions to ease his breathing difficulties. Death Eaters cowered in corners of the room, too terrified to make a sound. None of them wanted to draw his attention to themselves. That had already proven nearly lethal to several of them.

The only one relatively immune to his displeasure at the moment was Snape and that was only because Voldemort needed him desperately. Snape was brewing potions around the clock to heal Voldemort's tortured body. Even then, Voldemort had still subjected him to the cruciatus curse a couple of times after he had found Snape's application of the salves to be insufficiently delicate.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry was perched on an examining room table waiting for a Doctor. The Magical summer camp he had signed up for insisted on a complete physical before they allowed any camper to play any type of physical sport. So he found himself here, waiting for a Doctor to certify him fit and healthy enough to play Quidditch.

He swung his legs in the air, idly wondering why rooms like this were always so chilly. Especially as they had him change into a flimsy hospital gown for the examination. He was a bit nervous, all of his arrangements so far had been over the phone, so this was the first time since he left Britain (not counting that close brush he had in Amsterdam and his forays into magical bookshops) that he would be interacting with a wizard. He wished he could have just gone to a normal doctor but the Camp insisted on a thorough Magical examination. So here he was, in the Magical Wing at Cedars Sinai. He wondered, not for the first time, if he was making a terrible mistake. Perhaps going to that summer camp was not a good idea. Maybe he should just stick to the Muggle World. He felt far safer there. But on the other hand, there was Quidditch.

He missed Quidditch, he really did. He missed being able to fly. He missed the feeling of freedom that flying gave him. He missed the adrenaline rush of racing for the snitch. He missed doing something that he was really good at.

He forced himself to calm down. The Fidelius would keep him safe. No one looking for Harry Potter or the Boy who lived would ever be able to find him. He could afford to take the slight risk of attending summer camp.

"Aah Mr. Dobbins, I take it?" said a man in a white coat as he entered the room. "I'm Dr. Hancock."

"Please to meet you, sir," said Harry.

"So, I see you're here for a complete physical. Need one for camp, eh? Good, good. So what's your sport?" asked Dr. Hancock cheerfully.

"Quidditch, sir," answered Harry.

"Aah Quidditch, never got into that myself. I always preferred Quodpot. Much more exciting, but then that's just me. Quidditch can be fun too I guess. What position do you play?"

"Seeker, I've never really played Quodpot," answered Harry.

"Oh, then you must try and get in a game or two at camp. No need to restrict yourself to just Quidditch, eh? Now then, why don't you lie down on the table and we can get this exam taken care of."

Harry lay down and Dr. Hancock waved his wand over Harry. "Hmm, you're a bit underweight for a fifteen...almost sixteen year old. Don't tell me you you're one of those kids who try to keep their weight down so that they can be faster on a broom. Not a good idea at all," said the doctor shaking his head at Harry.

Harry wondered how he was to explain the Dursleys. "It was actually my cousin," he said. "I was staying with some relatives last summer and my cousins really fat. Like really really fat. So my aunt put him on a diet and she...well she asked me to go on the diet as well. To support him you know."

The doctor shook his head again. "Very irresponsible of your aunt I must say. Still, you're obviously eating better now, so probably no harm done in the long run. I'll just prescribe you a few multivitamins, just to be on the safe side. Now for the rest of the examination..." he waved his wand over Harry again and said "_Egritudo inspectoris._" An image formed over Harry's body immediately. It looked like a complete three-dimensional hologram of a human skeleton.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Harry. "That's a cool spell."

"I take it you've never had a complete physical before then. This is just a standard diagnostic spell. Right now it's just showing me your bones, but we can also use it to scan your internal organs, circulatory system etcetera, etcetera," explained Dr. Hancock.

Harry shrugged, he had been in the hospital wing plenty of times but Madam Pomfrey had never performed a spell like this on him. Well, maybe she had done it while he was asleep.

"Hmm, that must have been a nasty break," said Dr. Hancock as he frowned at the image of Harry's arm. "Normally we don't re-grow a bone unless it's completely shattered. How on earth did you manage that?"

"That was actually...well it was just a simple break caused by a bludger but then one of the teachers at my last school tried to heal it and he...well, he managed to vanish the bone instead," explained Harry.

"That is quite shocking. What kind of school was this? I hope you sued them. Untrained people have no business trying to cast healing spells, let alone teaching at a school," exclaimed Dr. Hancock.

"Uhh, well, no I didn't. The school nurse managed to fix me up and I didn't really want to make a fuss," said Harry.

"You really should have," said the doctor. He twisted his wand a bit and the image floating above Harry changed to show his lungs. Harry was fascinated at the sight of his lungs expanding and deflating in his chest with every breath he took.

"Hmm, take a deep breath. Yes, that's fine, hold it. Now exhale...Well, your lungs look fine," the doctor said. He twisted his wand again and Harry's heart and other organs came into view.

The Doctor frowned, waved his wand again and the image of Harry's heart expanded and rotated in front of him. This was soon followed by, what looked to Harry's untrained eye as his kidneys and what might have been a liver or perhaps a spleen.

"Have you ever been bitten by a venomous creature of any type," asked the Doctor. "I'm seeing some slight organ damage, nothing that's immediately life threatening but it looks like the damage one would typically see caused by exposure to a Hemotoxic and Neurotoxic venom."

Harry froze. Not only was he shocked by the news that his internal organs were damaged but how on earth was he supposed to explain being bitten by a bloody basilisk. It wasn't as if you could find them crawling around under every bush.

"Uhh, yes," he said. "I was bitten by a snake in my right arm. Around 3 years ago, I guess."

"Know what type of snake it was?" asked the doctor.

"Not really, no," lied Harry. "I had Phoenix tears poured on the bite and they seemed to...well, they healed the bite."

"I see," said the Doctor in a rather tight-lipped way. "You do seem to lead quite an interesting life. That must have been a particularly nasty snakebite. Phoenix tears aren't really the recommended course of treatment for most snakebites. Quite rare, you know, only used in the most life threatening of injuries. I suppose they couldn't find the specific anti-venom for the snake that bit you?"

"I guess," said Harry weakly. He really did not know what else to say.

Dr. Hancock waved his wand and the images vanished. He waved his wand again and another image formed. This was a complete ghost like image of Harry. Mostly transparent except for a ridiculous number of spots here and there that were glowing a deep red. Harry could see that they corresponded to places that he had been hurt in the past. There was the spot on his arm where Pettigrew had cut him. The basilisk bite, the Quidditch injuries, the wounds that he got while fighting the creatures in the maze. There were even faint, barely visible impressions of the cuts and bruises he had incurred in countless bouts of 'Harry Hunting'. Most troubling of all though was the dark crimson spot pulsating over where his scar was.

"Oh dear," said the doctor when he spotted that. He vanished the image and spent the next few minutes casting dozens of diagnostic spells upon Harry. Images of symbols and runes appeared and vanished around Harry's head at a dizzying pace. The doctors face getting grimmer and grimmer with each spell he cast.

Finally, he seemed to have finished. He waved his wand one last time and turned away. He pulled a chair out and sat down upon it before picking up the phone and speaking softly into it. Harry tried to get up but found that himself frozen to the examining table. He could not move. What the hell was happening? He tried to force himself free but found himself unable to move even a single muscle. He was just about to scream for Dobby to pop him out of there when the Doctor spoke -

"Please don't try to move, Mr. Dobbins," said the Doctor. "I'm afraid I've had to immobilise you for the time being. I'm sorry but it is the standard protocol we are instructed to follow when we come across cases like this."

"Cases like what?" shouted Harry.

"Well, the good news Jim, I can call you Jim, right? The good news is that it's nothing to worry about. We have a specialist here on our staff. He'll be able to fix you up in no time."

"Fix what?" asked a panicking Harry.

Doctor Hancock waved his wand and Harry felt the soothing pulse of a calming charm as it swept over him.

"You seem to be a victim of a possession. Tell me, have you ever spent any time in an area with a lot of ghosts?" asked Dr. Hancock.

"Possession! What? I can't be...Why can't I move?" asked Harry.

"I'm afraid that's standard protocol, Mr. Dobbins. You see, in most cases of possession the spirit will fight back if it feels threatened. We can't have it harming you, now can we. So it is best if we keep you immobilised. Now as I was asking you earlier - Have you ever been around spirits?"

"My old school. It had dozens of ghosts...but they never did anyone any harm that I ever heard of. I even went to a Deathday party once. But...but...there was this teacher...back in my first year at Hogwarts - he was possessed by the spirit of Vo…by the spirit of an evil wizard. He died. Is that...is that what's going to happen to me?"

"No, No Jim. Please stay calm. I've already sent a message to Doctor Patil. He's our resident specialist for dealing with cases like this. He'll have it out of you in no time, no time at all. We just need to get the authorisation from our Dean of Medicine. In cases like these, we feel that the patients permission is not required as in most cases the spirit inside them will not allow them to give permission. So we'll have it out of you as soon as we get the Dean to okay it. Come to think of it - I could probably just get your parents permission. Sorry, I should have thought of that. I've never had an underage possession case before. Well, the truth is I've never handled a possession case before myself but..."

"I'll give you my permission," shouted Harry frantically. "Just get it out. Get it out!"

Doctor Hancock looked a little taken aback. "I must say that's an encouraging sign," he said. "Obviously the spirit has not managed to influence your behaviour to any great extent or you would not be capable of asking us to get it out. Don't worry; we'll have it out of you in no time. Dr. Patil should be here any minute. In the meantime, I should really contact your parents as well. Are they in the waiting room?"

"There's only my Dad, Bob Dobbins," said Harry. "He should be waiting outside."

"We'll get him for you," said the doctor as he picked up a phone and instructed the person on the other end to send Mr. Dobbins into the exam room immediately.

"Dad!" shouted Harry the second Dobby entered the room. While Dobby had gotten better at pretending to be human, Harry really did not want the doctor to get into a long conversation with him. He didn't want the doctor to suspect that there was anything strange about Dobby after all. The last thing he needed was for the Doctor to realise that Dobby was an elf and not the middle-aged man he currently looked like courtesy of an enchanted bracelet.

"There's nothing to worry about," said Harry immediately, before the Doctor could even say hello to Dobby. "They say that there's a chance that I could be possessed but the Doctor says that they can fix that. Right? Doctor?"

"Yes, yes of course," said the doctor looking askance at Harry before turning to Dobby. "There is absolutely no need to worry. We'll have your son Jim here fixed up and ready to play Quidditch in no time at all. We have a specialist here on staff and he should be able to fix Jim up right away. In fact - there's Dr. Patil, right there," he said as a distinguished looking dark skinned man entered the room.

The two doctors conferred quietly for a few minutes before Dr. Patil approached Harry and beamed down at him. "So, Jim is it? Dr. Hancock tells me you've been hanging around ghosts. Deathday parties and the like?"

"Yes, sir," said Harry. "I used to go to a school in Scotland and it had dozens of ghosts staying there."

"Hmmm, well, well, well. Whatever will they think of? And I suppose no one ever considered the dangers of things like this happening?" said Dr. Patil frowning in disapproval before he took out his own wand and cast a series of spells at Harry.

"Will Mas...my boy Jim be all right," asked Dobby looking a bit frantic. The glamour enchantment worked very well at displaying the emotions that Dobby was feeling.

"Yes, sir," said Dr. Hancock is an extremely reassuring tone. "There is absolutely no need to worry. Dr. Patil is absolutely the best at dealing with this type of situation."

"Hmmm, well it looks like you were quite right Dr. Hancock. There are definitely signs of a spirit. Rather a strange one I would say. On one hand, it is surprisingly strong with a rather dark residue and yet it barely registers on some of my detection spells. It's almost as if it was just a fraction of a spirit but that would be impossible. Still, I don't see any reason why we can't have it out of Jim right away," said Dr. Patil as he opened up a bag and started removing odd bits of equipment that Harry could not recognise. There were what looked like potions ingredients and stones with runes carved all over them and crystals and delicate looking silvery instruments of some type.

Harry found himself stripped down with things placed all over his body. The rune covered stones were placed on his neck and belly button. The doctor painted his chest with runes drawn in a silvery liquid. Crystals were hovered around his body before being placed in a circle surrounding him. Then the doctor started waving his wand and chanting a ridiculously long incantation and then there was pain.

Pain...Pure unadulterated pain blasted through his body. It started from his scar and swept in waves throughout his body. For the longest moment, there was nothing but agony. It was the most intense agony that Harry had ever felt. It was even worse than that time his scar had exploded in pain at the graveyard. Pain...nothing but pain.

He could not have said how long it lasted. It seemed to go on for eons but then suddenly it was over and the sudden absence of pain felt wonderful. He relaxed limply onto the examining table. There was a dull ache in all of his muscles and he realised that he must have been clenching them. Dimly he realised that the doctor was still pottering around him, removing the various paraphernalia he had used for the operation.

"Well, well, that was a stubborn little spirit wasn't it, it was really stuck in there," said the doctor as he peered at a little vial he held in his hand. It contained a dark grey mist that bubbled and spun like a miniature cloud inside the vial.

"What...what are you going to do with that?" asked Harry.

"Not to worry, Jim. This is going to be destroyed immediately. We can't have something like this floating around after all. I'll be taking care of it personally," said Dr. Patil as he dropped the vial inside a box that had sides six inches thick.

"Now, as for you, young man," Dr. Patil said as he turned and beamed down at Harry. "I'm afraid we are going to be keeping you under observation for the next three or four days. Mostly just to make sure that there are no long term problems related to your possession but Dr. Hancock also tells me that he needs to treat you for a few other minor ailments. Something about damage caused by a snakebite."

"Nothing to worry about Jim, Mr. Dobbins," said Dr. Hancock as he nodded to Dobby. "We just need to give you a few potions to fix you up. While we're at it, we can even look at getting rid of some of those scars of yours. That's if you want to get rid of them of course."

"That would be nice," mumbled Harry as he fell into an exhausted sleep.

"And don't worry, once we're done I'll be happy to certify you fit to play Quidd...oh he's asleep," said Dr. Hancock.

"Yes, the ritual would have taken quite a toll on him. Please admit him and keep a close eye on his vitals, Dr. Hancock. Page me if there's any change," said Dr. Patil before he left the room holding the box containing the piece of Voldemort's soul very carefully.

**~oo00oo~**

A/N: Before you start writing the review to tell me that you can't get rid of the Horcrux that easily, I should explain that my opinion is that a Horcrux cannot be created accidentally. For something that is described as being the darkest and forbidden of magics to be made accidentally is quite preposterous. If Voldemort's soul was so fragile that bits and pieces of it were flying off with every murder he did then there should have been dozens of accidental horcruxes all over Britain. There is also the fact that Horcruxes are described as being quite indestructible to anything short of fiendfyre and basilisk venom. Harry on the other hand is injured dozens of times throughout the course of the series. Granted that an organic living Horcrux would be different, shouldn't it at least have toughened him up just a bit. At best, Harry was possessed by a bit of Voldemort's soul. And I'm not even getting into how his mother's protection which was strong enough to burn Quirrell into ash did nothing to prevent Harry being turned into a Horcrux.

Even in canon, there really is not much evidence given for the fact that Harry is a Horcrux. Ignoring Dumbledore's opinion, all we really know for certain is that Harry and Voldemort have some sort of a connection and we have the little deformed baby in Kings Cross Station after Harry dies. Does this really mean that Harry is a Horcrux? Why can't Harry be the victim of a possession instead? For those who will no doubt state that just having a bit of Voldemort's spirit inside you is enough to make you a Horcrux, I ask - What about Quirrell? He was possessed by Voldemort. Was he a Horcrux? If he was then Harry should have been able to destroy any Horcrux just by touching it.

Finally, why didn't Poppy Pomfrey ever realise this? Who knows? In canon, she is described as a talented healer but she works as a school nurse. Perhaps she is not qualified enough to detect this. Perhaps she never looked. Perhaps she was always more concerned with treating his immediate injuries to worry about a scar that was a decade old.

**~oo00oo~**

A/N 2: I had to put this in because I was getting too many reviews speculating about this. Patil is a very common Indian surname and the Dr. Patil in this chapter is not related to Padma and Parvati Patil. In retrospect I really should have gone with a different name. **  
**

**~oo00oo~**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

Narcissa Malfoy apparated into Diagon Alley with a loud cracking sound. Only years and years of training in comportment kept her from frowning sadly at the sight. What had once been a busy bustling street filled with shoppers was now nearly deserted. The once thriving shops were closed with their shutters down. Nowhere was the disaster that Voldemort's rule was proving to be more apparent than in Diagon Alley.

As long as they stayed home, stuck inside their manors the purebloods could perhaps convince themselves that nothing had changed. That things were in fact much, much better now that the Dark Lord ruled Britain but all it took was one visit to Diagon Alley for the cold stark reality to smack them in the face with all the finesse of a heavy, wet dead fish.

The economy was...well there wasn't much of an economy any more. More and more businesses went bankrupt every day. They had clung on for dear life as long as they could; swallowing the assurances of the Ministry that things were going to get better any day, but there was only so long that a business could continue to stay open once a majority of its workers and customers disappear.

As she continued down the street towards Gringotts, Narcissa wished that things were different. If only…if only someone, anyone had stood up to the Dark Lord. If only someone had been able to oppose him. But no, no one had. Dumbledore, along with his cronies, was holed up at Hogwarts. The castle was no longer a school. No, it had reverted to the purpose for which it had been originally designed. It was once again a fortress.

Scrimgeour had proven to be as useless as Fudge and now he, and the few members of the original Ministry that had followed him, was in Hogwarts as well, begging for the scraps from Dumbledore's table.

Pathetic, the whole lot of them were absolutely pathetic.

Voldemort had tried of course. He had mustered his forces and attacked Hogwarts soon after he gained control of the Ministry. They had laid siege for months. Then there had been a few skirmishes. Both sides had lost people, although the attackers had of course lost a lot more as tends to happen to forces attacking a superbly fortified position.

A few Ravenclaws had done some projections. They had claimed that if the losses exceeded a certain number then not only would they no longer have the forces to hold Britain but in the worst case scenario the magical population of Great Britain would soon drop under sustainable numbers.

That had certainly thrown a large bucket of icy cold water on the fight. The calculations had even shocked Voldemort. Oh, he had ranted, raved, and thrown crucios around as they were going out of style but in the end, he could not gainsay the cold, hard, brutal facts. Attacking Hogwarts would have to wait.

They had been in a sort of cold war with the remnants of Dumbledore's forces ever since. Both sides were reluctant to engage the other. The best that Voldemort could manage was to ensure that Dumbledore stayed at Hogwarts.

The Death Eaters were not even allowed to relieve their frustrations on the muggles. The Death Eaters did not have the strength to oppose the ICW and the ICW - while the ICW did not care who was ruling Britain, they did care about the Statute of Secrecy. They had made it very clear that they would deal with any violations with swift and decisive action.

While the ICW would never bother if the occasional wizard took advantage of a muggle, a wizarding government doing it or failing to police their own citizens - That was another matter all together. After all, what the ICW did to the last wizarding Government that had openly taken large-scale action against the muggles was not something anyone wanted to see repeated. The wizards of the once great city of Tunguska could testify to that. If there had been anything left of them or the once proud city they lived in. Which there wasn't.

There wasn't even much point in stealing from muggles any longer. In the past, unscrupulous wizards had always been able to pick up a spare bit of change by stunning and looting an unsuspecting muggle. Now the goblins had stopped exchanging pounds for galleons. With the disappearance of the muggleborns not only had all trading with the muggles stopped but the goblins, who by ministry decree and treaty had been long forbidden from direct interaction with the muggle world, had also lost all their intermediaries. Who else would have willingly worked with muggles?

Muggleborns had also been the prime reason that the currency exchange even existed. They were the only ones who would ever need to convert galleons to pounds after all, to change the money they earned in the Magical world to a currency they could spend in the muggle world. Once it was clear that no one was converting from galleons to pounds any longer, the goblins had swiftly shut down their pound to galleon currency exchange counters.

Still, Narcissa did not really care about that. She would never stoop so low as to engage in muggle baiting. No, what did bother her was that the Magical World was now a dull and dreary place. She could not even partake in a quick visit to the muggle world for some entertainment. If anyone saw her heading to the muggle world for a night of Opera or the theatre...no, that did not bear thinking about. They would brand her a muggle sympathiser or worse and then not even her husband's position within the inner circle would be enough to save her.

The stupidity of the thugs that made up the majority of Voldemort's forces never ceased to amaze her. Here they were struggling to get along. The economy was in the toilet. They didn't have enough people to conquer Hogwarts. Hell, the problem was that they didn't have enough people, period. Did they do anything about that? No. Did they try to make the country more attractive to magical immigrants from other countries? No. What did they spend their time doing? They went around interrogating people on their blood status.

That woman Umbridge had to be the worst. She had wormed her way into a position of power at the Ministry and she used it to form a group of thugs called Snatchers. They were originally meant to find and detain Muggleborns. Unfortunately, for the rest of them there were no muggleborns left in Britain so now the Snatchers went around bothering whoever they could find. I mean really, did it really matter if someone had a muggleborn for a Grandparent. She knew of at least a dozen people who Umbridge had drummed out of the Ministry for precisely that fact. Did it matter to her that they only had one muggleborn for a grandparent and that the other three had been purebloods. No. That was not good enough for Madam Umbridge. Didn't she realise that a pureblood ancestry only went so far? A single muggle or muggleborn Grandparent - Hah!

While one may not want to invite such a person over for dinner there was nothing wrong with putting them to work. Why couldn't people like this Umbridge understand that? Fools, the whole lot of them. Just look at Snape for example. Even though he was only a half-blood, the Dark Lord had still made him a member of the inner circle. Why? Talent. Pure, unadulterated talent. Umbridge and people of her ilk would never understand that.

It was finally getting too much for her to bear which was the reason behind her trip to Diagon Alley that day. She was going to audit the Malfoy vaults. Hopefully, Voldemort and Lucius had not managed to squander all of what had once been a vast fortune. Hopefully, there was enough there for her to live a comfortable if not luxurious life in another country. It was high time she said farewell to England. Brazil should be lovely this time of year.

She would not regret leaving Lucius. The once proud pureblood she had married was now no more than a mere lickspittle. The fool who would let Voldemort lead them all to ruin did not deserve her sympathy. She would regret leaving Draco though. She had tried to talk to him but had found it futile. The idiot boy seemed hell bent on following in his father's footsteps. Why couldn't he see that those footsteps were leading him to penury and ruin? Voldemort would bleed them all dry before he was through. All of them, except for her.

Head held high, Narcissa Malfoy entered Gringotts.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry Potter was extremely nervous. The next few hours were incredibly important for his future. He was here at the central testing centre in Chicago. A pilgrimage that magical students from all over the States had to undertake at least once in their lives usually during their final year in high school. He was here for that most dreaded of events. He was here to take his MSAT.

Magical Education in the States only really kicked off after the student enrolled in college. Prior to that, most American students tended to enrol in the same schools and high schools as their non-magical peers. Of course, they usually spent the summer months learning all that they could about magic but there was really no fixed curriculum or syllabus that the magical summer camps followed. People studied whatever they were interested in and the standards varied widely from camp to camp. This was the main reason behind the MSAT. A standardised test was the only fair way to evaluate the student's college applications.

What the Mages of America had done was to ensure that their people received the very best college education that the States had to offer. This meant that they had long ago infiltrated the top American Universities and Colleges. There, unseen to non-magical eyes, existed departments of Magic in nearly every top tier University.

The true brilliance of that fact as it pertained to Harry was that it made getting into an Ivy League college that much easier for him. While, his SAT scores were extremely good his high school grades weren't as good as they could have been. His transcripts for the last few years were decent enough but they weren't quite good enough for him to get into an Ivy League school. This was mostly due to the four-year gap in his non-magical education rather than any lack of brains or talent upon his part.

He could have easily gotten into a decent state school or a second rung University but why should he settle for second best when there was a chance to get the very best education that the States had to offer.

All he had to do was get a decent enough score in his MSAT, where the M stood for Magic of course, and he could have his pick of almost any university in America. The admissions department of the magical sections of the American universities were famous for ignoring the student's non-magical grades. An MSAT score was everything.

He didn't even have to major in a magical subject. No, a minor would be good enough. This meant that if he did well enough in his MSAT he could, in theory, study something like Computer Engineering at MIT or Business at Harvard. As long as he supplemented it with a minor in a something like Enchantment or Transfiguration, he was free to study whatever non-magical subject he liked.

Personally, he was praying that he would score high enough to get into Princeton. Their warding program was the best in the country and a minor in warding would certainly help him keep himself secure. Not to mention that any non-magical degree he received from there would ensure that he would certainly be able to get a high paying job or two after college.

The testing centre was a grim place with beige walls and anti-cheating charms upon all the desks. Stone-faced proctors were busy distributing the Question papers to hundreds of students. Harry checked his supplies. He hoped a dozen number 2 pencils would be enough. The first section of the test would take five hours and would consist of multiple-choice and essay questions. He would have to come back the next day for the practical portions of the tests.

He had to restrain himself from ripping the question paper open as soon as he got it. He had to wait for the proctors to notify them when they could begin. He forced himself to keep calm, utilising some of the occlumency techniques he had picked up at camp. Soon enough the bell rang and the proctors signalled that they could begin. He opened the question paper and read the first question.

_1) The ? charm can be used to repel Dementors._

_a) Rationalus_

_b) Protectus_

_c) Patronus_

_d) Protego_

_e) Demonos Repellus_

He grinned and tapped his charmed No 2 pencil upon the little oval marked with a 'c' in his answer sheet. It instantly filled with black to mark his answer and he turned to the next question. He hoped they would all be as easy as the first one.

**~oo00oo~**

Five hours later an exhausted Harry finally put down his pencil and rubbed his aching wrist. The MSAT had proven to be remarkably difficult but he thought he had done well enough. All around him, the other students were beginning to gather their supplies and leave. Some of them were discussing their answers with each other. Harry did not see the point in that. Either he had done well enough or he hadn't. What was the point in discussing it? He might as well just wait for the results. He finished putting away his pencils erasers and other paraphernalia and stood up to find himself facing a petite blonde girl. She was staring at him with an intent look that was somehow rather disconcerting.

"Why do you look like someone I think I should know?" she asked him, rather bluntly.

"Err," said Harry, feeling rather flummoxed.

"I don't remember ever meeting you before and yet there is something about you that makes me feel like I should know who you are. Why is that?" she said, staring at him all the while.

"I don't know. Have we met before? Maybe, at Summer Camp? My names Jim, Jim Dobbins," said Harry.

"No, I don't think so. I would have remembered meeting you before, I think." She paused and tilted her head to the side, studying him intently. "It's funny, you don't look like a Jim," she said.

"Uhhh, unfortunately that is my name," said Harry.

"Are you sure? Jim wouldn't be short for James would it? Somehow, I think James would fit you much better. It's still not quite right, but it fits you better than Jim," she explained before abruptly turning and walking away, leaving a startled Harry staring after her.

"Bloody Hell!" thought Harry. "What the hell was that? Did my Fidelius Charm fail? She knew. She bloody well knew my middle name was James. Is she playing with me? Is she a Death Eater? Are there more Death Eaters waiting outside to ambush me?"

He was starting to panic and staring around for the nearest exit. He would have to run. Run immediately. The Death Eaters had finally tracked him down.

He was halfway to the exit when he forced himself to slow down. "Calm down," he told himself. "What would Dr. Rivers say? You're letting your paranoia get in the way of living your life, she'd say. No, she wouldn't be happy."

Dr. Rivers was Harry's therapist who he had been seeing for a little over six months. The previous summer he had suffered from nightmares a couple of times while he was at camp. The camp counsellor had noticed and suggested he see a therapist to help him deal with his problems and Harry, after much resistance and denial, had finally gotten around to finding a muggle therapist.

He had changed the story somewhat. He had told her he was having nightmares about the death of a former classmate. Cedric, a competitor in a cross-country race organised by his previous school, had been murdered, murdered by two drug dealers who he had been unfortunate enough to stumble across during the race. They had been in the middle of a drug deal and had not been happy about having a witness. Harry had seen the whole thing and had barely escaped himself. He had made up a story about how he was in the Witness Protection Program and how he was sure that the drug dealers were still out to get him in order to stop him from testifying.

She had promptly diagnosed him to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and had been treating him for the same for the last six months. She was also helping him to deal with his feelings of paranoia, his incessant need to always have an escape route planned out and his inability to be comfortable sitting with his back to a door.

She would not be very happy to learn that Harry had panicked after a single conversation with a young teenage girl.

"Okay," thought Harry. "First things first, I need to check if the Fidelius is still active. How do I do that? Oh, yes."

He tossed a quick muffling charm around himself just to be safe. "My name is Har-urk," he whispered out loud. "Fine, I still can't introduce myself by my name. That means that the Fidelius is still working," he realised, with an enormous sense of relief before dispelling the charm.

He walked out the door of the testing centre and looked around for that blonde girl who had so startled him. She was making her way down the street, her long blonde hair floating in the breeze.

"Okay," he thought. "If the Fidelius is still active then there's no way she could know who I am. That whole Jim – James things must just be a coincidence. If she's not a Death Eater and my Fidelius charm is still active then...then...then a ridiculously cute blonde girl just came up and talked to me."

He stared off into space for a moment, thinking furiously.

"A gorgeous blonde just came up to you to talk. She's obviously interested in you. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to let your paranoia stop you from living your life? No, hell no," he told himself.

He raced after the blonde and came to a stop next to where she was standing on the street.

"Hey," he blurted out, giving her a bit of a start. "You never did tell me what your name was."

She turned to him and gave him an appraising look. "Luna," she said. "My name is Luna Lovegood."

"Well, Luna, how about we go and grab a cup of coffee. I know I could use one after that exam."

She didn't say anything for a long moment and Harry was steeling himself for disappointment and rejection when she said - "I think I'd prefer a Gillywater, actually. There's a place not too far from here on Michigan Avenue that makes a rather nice one."

"Oh, great - I don't think I've ever had a Gillywater," said Harry.

An hour later, Harry was entranced. Luna was a little strange at times but she was also smart and clever, incredibly insightful and ridiculously witty. She was a year younger than he was and was still taking the same exams as him, which just illustrated exactly how brilliant she was. She was also planning to attend an American University and wanted to either become a journalist like her father or a crypto zoologist. She had yet to decide. She hoped that she might be able to do both.

There had been an awkward moment when she brought up the fact that she used to attend Hogwarts. That had almost been enough to send Harry running out the door but luckily he had managed to restrain himself. He wondered how on earth it was possible that he had never noticed her at Hogwarts. After all, they must have been at the same school for three years. Of course, he had always kept mostly to himself and at Hogwarts for whatever reason students never interacted much with the students in other Houses outside of class. Even within Gryffindor, apart from the boys in his dorm, Hermione, the Weasleys and the Quidditch team, he barely knew anybody, so perhaps that was it. Still, it was quite surprising that he had never noticed her before. She was a rather unique girl after all.

He didn't say any of that of course. Jim Dobbins had been born and brought up in America and had never so much as set foot in England. That was his current story and faint traces of an English accent or not he was going to stick to it.

He shook his head and forced his attention back on the conversation with Luna. He had a job to do. He had to get her to agree to go on a proper date with him after all.

**~oo00oo~**

**A/N**: So what exactly is happening with Luna and the Fidelius Charm? I have no idea. I do know that in the Deathly Hallows, Luna was able to see right through Harry's polyjuice disguise at the Weasley wedding. She didn't even seem to notice it was there. I don't think that was explained either.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12.**

* * *

Patrick Anderson had missed his early morning run that day. He hated to skip his daily run but he had no choice as he had to catch an early morning flight for a business meeting in Chicago. However, just because he couldn't run in the morning didn't mean that he couldn't make it up in the night, which was why he was even now pounding the streets around his hotel in Chicago.

Unfortunately, he was quite tired and his reflexes were not as sharp as they would usually be. The street wasn't very well lit either, one of the street lamps had gone out and unluckily for Patrick someone had dropped a can right under it. He never saw the can until his foot landed right on it. The can slid out from under his foot causing it to twist oddly and he could not stop himself from stumbling sideways and tripping on the curb, which sent him careening wildly. Right into the street.

He never even saw the car that killed him.

**~oo00oo~**

Albus Dumbledore awoke with a start. He had no idea why he had woken but at his age, such occurrences were not uncommon. He knew from past experience that he would not be able to fall asleep again for some time so he decided to get up and get in some work. He put on his dressing gown and shuffled slowly towards his study where he turned tired rheumy eyes towards his the papers on his desk. He flicked idly through them. There was a report from the head elf in the kitchens. They were running short of flour again. He would have to have Fawkes take him on another shopping trip.

Truly, things would have been far more difficult without his faithful familiar. Tom had people watching the castle constantly and leaving the castle through the usual methods of apparation and portkeys was much too dangerous. They had disconnected the castle from the floo network years ago and the wards on the castle itself meant that anyone wishing to apparate out would first have to leave the castle grounds. A phoenix on the other hand could take him anywhere in the world almost instantly which made things like replenishing their supplies mush easier.

He leaned back and stared at his Boy-Who-Lived wall. The Boy-Who-Lived wall was simply that, a wall on which he had pinned every single scrap of information he had managed to gather about the Boy-Who-Lived. Even after all these years, it was rather sparse. His eyes roamed over the various pieces of parchment stuck to the wall, hoping for a spark of inspiration that would lead him to the Boy-Who-Lived.

He pulled down a report from Poppy Pomfrey. The discovery of an unaccounted for dose of Skelegrow Potion had been a promising lead. There was a record that it had been dispensed but there was no record of which student it had been given to. That coupled with other unattributed records of treatments in the Hogwarts Medical Wing had lead him to the conclusion that the Boy-Who-Lived suffered from unusually brittle bones and was extremely accident prone as well. He had put the word out for a patient matching that criteria in every Magical Hospital he could contact but no patient had ever matched those criteria.

He sighed heavily. If only Harry had not hidden himself so well. If only...He blinked slowly, he was suddenly startling awake and alert. Harry...Harry Potter. Oh dear god! Finally, after all these years...

He raced towards his desk and started pulling out his drawers frantically. Where was it? Where was that that tracker? If he could suddenly remember who Harry Potter was then surely that tracker he had created all those years ago would be working again. He pulled out the drawer completely and dumped its contents upon his desk. Various knick-knacks and papers made an unseemly pile. He pawed frantically through the mess before he finally pulled out a small device that looked like a small compass. He flipped open the lid and sighed in relief. It was working. His tracker was working. He had to get to the boy immediately.

He called to Fawkes and flamed out of his office. Thirty seconds later, he flamed right back in to put on some proper robes, his cheeks red with embarrassment. Thank Merlin no one had seen him.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry Potter awoke with a terrible hangover. Yesterday had been Luna's 24th Birthday and he had drunk far more than he should have at the party. He blinked and shut his eyes tight. The morning light coming through his bedroom window was far too bright. Now, where was that hangover potion? Dobby always made sure there was one on his bedside table when he knew that Harry had been drinking. He put his hand out; his eyes still screwed tightly against the light, and found the tiny vial of potion by groping blindly. He quickly drank it and sank back into bed as he waited for the potion to work.

Damn, he thought, last night had really been one for the books. He turned over on his side and contemplated the tousled blonde head of his girlfriend and wondered whether he should risk waking her up yet with a good snuggle. Probably not the best idea, he thought, she did have a tendency to be terribly cranky if he woke her up too early and they hadn't gotten to bed until the early hours of the morning. What was the time, he wondered. Did he need to get up yet? He was usually an early riser as he normally needed to check on how the stock market was doing but lately he had been cutting back on that. Just as well, he thought, the time difference between LA and New York meant that he usually had to get up way too early for his liking.

Making money on the stock market was far too easy for a wizard. A quick scrying ritual and you could predict how any stock would do with a fair amount of accuracy.

Funny thing scrying, he mused. For some reason it never worked if he tried to use it to predict what would happen to him or anyone he knew. There were people who could do that but Harry had never been able to see as much as a glimmer of his own future. Oddly enough, it worked spectacularly well if he used it to predict things like the stock market, which was really ridiculously lucky for him.

Harry had never bothered to take Divination in summer camp or at college as Trelawney had ruined the subject for him permanently, but he had still learned dozens of scrying techniques along the way from books, friends and by auditing the occasional lecture. Using these methods he had spent the first few years post college day trading with a vengeance. He had amassed quite a fortune during that time.

He did get bored with that eventually though and for the last few months had been looking for something else to do. He had performed a scrying ritual, looking specifically for a stock in which he could park his money safely for the next few years. He had received a vision of a fruit orchard in which instead of fruit, there were shining gadgets growing on the trees. A vast crop of shining rectangles with tiny pictures on them.

Well, he thought, only one real way to interpret that. It looked like Apple would be getting into the smartphone market at some point. He had heard rumours about it but now he had absolutely no reservations about investing most of his money there. He had gotten the sense that the crop would take at least a few more years to ripen and that after that...well; he would probably end up making a ton of money.

In the meantime, he needed to find something to keep him busy. Getting a regular nine to five office job did not interest him at all. Dobby was running his furniture store just fine all on his own and while Harry would help out there from time to time, Dobby really did not need him there.

In the past he had also gone with Luna and her father on their trips and helped them research various articles for their paper but that also was not really his forte.

Warding on the other hand was something he was exceptionally skilled at and also something in which he had managed to build up something of a reputation in. A set of Dobbins' wards while not quite there yet would eventually be known as the ultimate in security. Unfortunately, while he did undertake warding projects from time to time, it again was something that was not in very high demand. Very few people required the type of ultra-high security wards that Harry specialised in. He could probably have all the business he could handle and more if he was willing to handle jobs which required the standard security wards but Harry found that type of work much to boring to contemplate doing on a full time basis.

He sighed, and prepared to get up and face the day. For some reason he felt a bit off this morning. As if something had happened...but for the life of him, he could not think what it could be. Was it just the hangover? Maybe the potion had been a bit off? He had no idea. All he knew was that he felt...different.

He had a quick shower and walked back into the bedroom to get dressed. Luna was stirring and would probably awake any moment, so he should probably get some coffee on.

That was the moment that Luna awoke and sat up in bed. She rubbed her eyes before turning to him with her usual beaming smile.

Then she screamed.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry grabbed his wand off the dresser and spun around wildly trying to see whatever it was that had made Luna scream like that. "What happened?" he cried.

She was looking at him as if she had never seen him before in her life.

"You...You...You're not Jim...How?...Why?...Harry Potter," she said.

Harry's legs collapsed from under him and he had to grab the back of a chair to steady himself. His fidelius...how...what...bloody hell! Somehow, his Fidelius Charm had broken. As far as he knew, the only way that would happen would be if the Secret Keeper gave up the secret...but he had made sure that the secret keeper would never be able to do that. So what had happened?

Even if the Secret Keeper died then whoever they had made privy to the secret would become the new secret keepers. Which meant that he and Dobby should be the new secret keepers. But...

Okay, he was the secret as well. So perhaps he could not be the secret keeper as well, but Dobby...Dobby was an elf and... Yes, the book he had found the Fidelius Charm in had said it had to be hidden inside a human soul...so what happens to a Fidelius Charm when the Secret Keeper dies and there is nobody who is capable of becoming the Secret Keeper in his stead.

It was possible that something had happened to the Muggle he had used to hold his secret. Forget possible, it was a certainty that the man had died. Harry wondered what had happened to Patrick Anderson. He hadn't been that old and had seemed perfectly healthy so perhaps some sort of accident. In any case, that did not matter. He had to recast the Fidelius Charm immediately.

He raced to his closet and pulled out his trusty old backpack that Dobby had charmed all those years ago. He had never really gotten around to unpacking the thing completely and he thought that the book and his notes on the spell should still be in there.

He was just about to start digging through it when a loud "JIM" rent the air. Oh yes, Luna. He looked up to see her glaring at him. Oh dear...Luna! In his panic he had forgotten all about...

"So, are you going to explain?" she demanded without a trace of her usual calm and unflappable demeanour.

"Uhh...Uhh...I don't really know where to start," he stuttered.

"Why don't you start by explaining exactly how it is that my boyfriend, the person who I thought I knew," she paused and seemed to be taking deep calming breaths, "is not who I thought he was. Explain how and why you are not Jim Dobbins and...and..."

"Yes...Yes, you're absolutely right...It's just that, I kind of need to...I mean I really should recast the Fidelius before..." he babbled.

"The Fidelius...Oh, well that explains how no one knew who you were but now...would you care to explain - why you did it and more importantly - WHY THE HELL YOU NEVER TOLD ME," she shouted.

"I tried to tell you, I did," said Harry.

"Really, I think I would have remembered that," she snapped.

"All right, all right, just calm down for a second okay," said Harry. "Damn, it's way too early in the morning for this sort of conversation. Let's just go to the kitchen and grab a cup of tea first okay."'

Harry was feeling getting increasingly nervous as he prepared the tea. He fretted about the time he was wasting. It was perfectly possible that Voldemort was on his way there, getting closer and closer even as he waited for the water to boil. Death Eaters and assassins could be preparing to storm his house. Unfortunately, he couldn't just knock Luna out while he went and found another person to be his secret keeper. Or could he? Perhaps a quick stupefy...He shook his head. No, that was a terrible idea. He couldn't do that to Luna. He just had to explain things to her quickly, then he could recast his Fidelius - there was a college student who lived a few houses down the street. He could probably use him and it would be easier if his secret keeper lived nearby. This time he would be keeping a much closer eye on his secret keeper.

He finished making the tea, poured it into two cups, handed her one and then sat down across the table from her.

"Well, to start with. You remember how things were like about ten years ago, right? Voldemort was back. No one was doing anything about it and I knew, I knew he would be coming to kill me sooner or later. Hell, out of the four years I lived in the British Magical world, he tried to kill me himself three of those years. So, I had to hide and the Fidelius charm seemed like the best way."

"Now, as to why I never told you - Do you remember the night you told me you loved me for the first time?" he asked. She glared at him as if she could not believe he was asking such a stupid question.

"Right, so...do you remember what I did right after you told me. I told you I needed to tell you something then I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and asked you to read it..."

"Yes, but it was blank and you seemed really surprised then you started babbling something about mixing the papers up and...you never did say what was supposed to be on that paper," said Luna.

"That piece of paper had my secret written on it and when you couldn't read it that was the first time I realised that I had made a mistake when I cast the charm. You see, the Secret Keeper can pass the secret on orally, but they can also usually write the secret down and anyone who reads that is let into the secret. The problem is that, it turns out that - when a secret is written down it has a limited shelf life. It doesn't last forever."

"I've never heard that about the Fidelius," said Luna.

"Yeah, most books don't mention that. I'm not even sure if it's widely known. After all, most people will destroy the written secret as soon as they've shown it to whomever they want to let in on the secret. Nobody keeps it written down for long - that would be horribly insecure."

"So why didn't you just get your Secret Keeper to tell me directly, or write it down again?" asked Luna.

Harry chuckled ruefully and said - "The problem was that I didn't really trust anyone enough so after I performed the Fidelius and I had the Secret written down - I obliviated the Keeper. Unfortunately, I also used the non-reversible version of the memory charm so..."

"That's...that's..." stammered Luna. For once, she was at a total loss for words. The wrackspurts had taken residence in her head the minute she woke up and were totally unwilling to vacate the premises.

"Right, so now you know. Does it...Has it made any difference in how you...you know?" asked Harry.

Luna gave Harry one of her patented looks. Even after all these years Harry still found it impossible to tell what she was thinking at times.

"Of course not Jim...I mean Harry. Hmmm, it's going to be difficult getting used to calling you that, even if it fits you better than Jim ever did" said Luna.

Harry laughed in relief. "Don't get too used to calling me that. I'm going to recast the Fidelius as soon as I can. All I need to do is find my old notes and the original book in which I found the charm in the first place," he said.

"You're going to need another secret keeper as well," said Luna.

"Yes, last time I just grabbed a convenient muggle. I could do that again. You know John, that college student who lives a couple of houses down. He might do..."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Luna, interrupting Harry. "You'll just have the same problem again. You can use me as your Secret Keeper this time. That will be much safer and better than you going around obliviating muggles."

Harry grinned. Luna was absolutely right of course and if there was anyone he could trust to hold his secret it was her.

He would have to hurry though. He had no idea how much time he had before Voldemort managed to track him down. Still, once he had the book it should not take too long. Say, half an hour to review the books and his notes from the last time he cast the charm then another half-hour to prepare the ritual circle and cast the charm. Then...

That was when his ward alarms went off. A wizard had been detected apparating onto their street. Harry flipped out his wand and waved it at a mirror that hung on one of the kitchen walls. It immediately displayed a map of the surrounding area. A dark red pulsating dot denoted the position of the wizard who was even then moving closer to his house. Harry waved his wand again and the mirror changed to show an image of the street. There, on the screen, it showed a man dressed in ridiculously flamboyant robes walking swiftly towards his house.

Albus Dumbledore had arrived.

**~oo00oo~**

A/N: Sorry for the long delay for this chapter. Hopefully, I'll be able to release the remaining chapters a lot faster. In the meantime, I've also written another little oneshot which you can find on my profile page, if you feel like reading it.

**~oo00oo~**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

* * *

Dumbledore strode down the quiet suburban street. It seemed like an affluent neighbourhood with large multi-storey houses, most of which had exquisitely designed and maintained gardens. Harry must be doing well for himself, he thought. He wondered what Harry had been up to all these years.

He could only hope and pray that the boy had not given up on his magic. He would need it now more than ever. He had to defeat Voldemort after all. He was the only one who could do it.

Even if he hadn't given up his magic and perhaps enrolled in another school, there really was no substitute for a Hogwarts education. He would have to train the boy extensively before the boy would be ready to face Voldemort. Dumbledore sighed heavily; he certainly had his work cut out for him.

He stopped in front of a particularly nice house, well he thought it was nice but for some reason his eyes kept sliding right off it and he found himself having to concentrate particularly hard to keep himself from walking right past it . Luckily, the tracker was pointing straight at it so this had to be Harry's house. He might have walked right past it if the tracker had not been pointing to it. There was probably some sort of notice-me-not ward around the property. No muggle-repellant ward which was strange for a wizard's house but aah, there was the expected wizard-repelling ward. Unless you were keyed into one of those, you could not enter. Well, Fawkes could certainly be able to flame him right through that but that would not be very discrete, now would it. On a street like this...tossing up a notice-me-not spell of his own would probably work but was not an absolute guarantee. Not in broad daylight, no.

No, he would just have to discretely break through that ward himself. He took out his wand and set to work.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry's mouth was wide open as he gaped dumbly at the sight of Albus Dumbledore standing outside his front gates. For some strange reason he had never expected to see the Headmaster of his former school. There was something terribly incongruous and strange about seeing Albus Dumbledore outside of Hogwarts.

He had been prepared to see Voldemort backed up by hordes of Death Eaters. He would not have been surprised to see a flock of Dementors or even a pack of werewolves but for some reason the sight of Albus Dumbledore had reduced his brain to a stuttering gibbering wreck.

"What the hell is he doing here?" he sputtered.

"Hmm," Luna mused. "Well, considering you are the only one to have ever defeated Voldemort before and Dumbledore has been opposing him, if rather ineffectually, I would say that he probably believes that he needs you to defeat Voldemort."

"What?" exclaimed Harry. "Just because of...b-but...b-but...that doesn't make any sense."

"Doesn't have to make sense for it to be true, Harry," said Luna. "Dumbledore has always been rather famous for his eccentricities. There's no telling what he believes."

Harry gaped at Luna. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was absolutely right. She did make it a habit of being right more often than not.

"In any case, he's here now. What are we going to do about it?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. Damn it, he needed a plan. What was he going to do about the fact that a man, his former Headmaster, who was dressed in luridly coloured robes which were the very antithesis of sartorial splendour, was standing in front of his house.

"Absolutely nothing," he announced to Luna's surprise.

"Nothing..." she echoed.

"Nope, we're just going to ignore him and just go ahead and perform the Fidelius. The wards will keep him out until we're done. Hell, it should take him weeks to break through my wards and it shouldn't take us more than an hour or so to prepare. With a bit of luck he'll forget all about why he's come here as soon as we cast the Fidelius."

"Are you sure the wards are strong enough to keep him out?" Luna asked in a worried tone. This was Albus Dumbledore they were talking about after all. Who knew exactly what the old man was capable of doing?

"Absolutely," said Harry as he whirled around to the mirror on which he saw that Dumbledore had taken out his wand and was already attempting to break through his wards.

Luna stared at the wand with interest. Despite having studied at Hogwarts for three years, well three and a bit if you really wanted to be precise and include her aborted fourth year, this was the first time she was getting a good look at Dumbledore's wand. The sight of it reminded her of some of her father's research. She would really have to dig out his files and have a look at them again.

"And will you look at that, he's already trying to break in. Bit rude don't you think? He didn't even try to call the house on the intercom and it's barely a couple of feet from where he's standing. I've got half a mind to call the police and have him arrested for breaking and entering," said Harry.

"Still, don't worry. It'll take him weeks to penetrate all the layers. We should probably get started on that Fidelius," said Harry.

"All the layers...you know we've never really discussed the wards. I mean, I know you've put in a lot of work on them and I know there are a lot of them but... Exactly how many wards are their around the house?" asked Luna.

"Well, the Head of the Warding Department back at college always recommended a minimum set of at least seven wards, usually a mix of defensive, offensive and something unexpected. Something about the number seven being magically significant and working especially well. He had some sort of complicated arithmancy proof that he used to assign for extra credit that proved it but I was never really that interested in the theory behind it," said Harry.

"No, just the practical aspects, right? So, we've got at least seven ward's...why do I get the feeling that that's not the whole story?" asked Luna.

"Hmmm...that's because a set of seven is the minimum my professor recommended. I wanted to make sure that our home was really well protected..." said Harry.

"So..." asked Luna.

"So, I've got interlocking rings of three hundred and forty-three wards," explained Harry.

"Three hundred and... oh I get it. That's seven times seven times seven isn't it?" exclaimed Luna. "Seems a bit excessive though," she muttered to herself.

"Yes, so like I said there's absolutely no way that he can break in before we cast the fidelius..." he paused and stared furiously at the mirror at what Dumbledore was doing before pulling out what looked like a small pocket watch and peering worriedly at it.

"That damned idiot! I mean, I knew he was bloody incompetent...after all the shit he allowed to happen at Hogwarts' but this really...I mean really...What in buggering bloody hell is the man thinking?" asked Harry furiously.

"What? What's the problem?" asked Luna.

"He's trying to bloody brute force his way past the first ward. Is he insane? Who the hell does that?" raged Harry.

"Brute force...as opposed to?" asked Luna, wishing for the first time that she had also studied up on wards just so that she could follow what on earth Harry was so worried about.

"As opposed to having half a brain in his bloody head," shouted Harry, before visibly calming himself and continuing. "If you want to break into someone's house, the smart thing to do would be to pick the lock on their front door, maybe pry open a window, right? What Dumbledore is doing is the equivalent of battering down the door with a sledgehammer or maybe tossing a grenade at it," explained Harry.

"Hmmm, and this is stupid...because?" asked Luna.

Harry sighed heavily. "It's stupid because breaking the wards that way means the daft bugger is never going to notice that there is a secondary antipersonnel ward tied to the first ward. It's stupid because I never thought that I wouldn't want to kill someone who's trying to break through my wards. It's stupid because the moment he breaks through the first ward we're going to end up with one inch cubes of Albus freaking Dumbledore decorating our street."

He waved his little pocket watch at her. "According to my ward monitor, at the rate he's going he's probably going to break through the first ward in about five minutes. So...What the hell do we do? I don't particularly want him dead but I sure as hell don't want to go out and talk to the...the...idiotic bloody sod."

Luna looked serenely at Harry while she mused over the problem. Really, she held no great affection for Dumbledore, years of being bullied at Hogwarts had not left her feeling particularly warm towards the teachers who failed to protect her, but it would be in shockingly bad taste to decorate the street that way. It would certainly scare away the local population of Blibbering Humdingers and might even annoy the neighbours just a bit.

**~oo00oo~**

Dumbledore stood outside the house, his wand pointed straight ahead. Soon, he would be through the wards. He gritted his teeth in effort. Strange, the ward was a lot stronger than he expected and he kept having the urgent desire and need to go back to Hogwarts to check on it. That must be the effect of another ward. A strong one too. Harry had to be complimented on how well he had protected his house. He wondered who exactly had done the warding. Probably the goblins, he thought. No matter, he was close to breaking through. He could feel it. Any moment now, the ward would pop like a balloon and he would be able to enter. Any moment now...

Suddenly a voice broke the silence as a young man exited the house - "You know, I'm sure there are better ways to commit suicide. Care to tell me why you decided to kill yourself in front of my house?"

Dumbledore, nearly dropped his wand in surprise. He felt a bit embarrassed at being caught in the act of breaking in but ruthlessly crushed those emotions as he brought forth his usual public persona.

"Aah Harry, my dear dear boy. You have no idea how good it is to see you after so many many years," said Dumbledore as he beamed at the dark haired young man. Harry was looking well, he decided. No longer a scrawny teen, he had filled out very well and looked extremely health and muscular.

"Can it, Dumbledore. I really don't appreciate it when people try to break into my house. So why don't you just bugger off back to wherever you came from," snapped Harry.

Dumbledore was quite taken aback at the hostility that Harry was displaying. Yes, perhaps it had been a bit presumptuous of him to have tried to break through the wards but he had seen no other way to contact the house. What had he been supposed to do? Stand outside the front gates and yell? Make an utter spectacle of himself as he attempted to garner Harry's attention? Still, he would soldier on. He would just have to ignore Harry's utterly appalling rudeness.

"My dear boy, I do apologise. At my advanced age, I sometimes forget the proprieties. I do hope you can forgive me." There, that should be enough to placate the boy and it seemed to have worked. The boy's expression had softened a bit. Good, that was good.

"Well, I guess there's no harm done after all," said Harry. "Unfortunately Professor, you've caught me at a rather bad time. Perhaps you could come back some other day." Harry didn't really expect Dumbledore to just go away, but there was no harm in trying.

"Harry, I have come a very long way to see you, my boy. Surely, you can't me to turn me away? Not after I've been searching for you for so many years."

"I have a lot to do today Professor, especially since you seem to have found me so easily. Voldemort could turn up at any moment. I have to...I have to...I need to make sure I am protected for when that happens and I really don't have any time to stand around debating things with you," stated Harry.

Dumbledore's face turned pale for the briefest of moments before he schooled his expression back into geniality. "My dear Harry," he said. "I assure you, Voldemort will not be able to find you so easily. I'm sure it will take him weeks or maybe months before he gets the slightest idea where you are."

"What makes you so certain of that fact, Professor?" asked Harry. Damn it, he needed to get rid of the bugger and get started on his Fidelius. Bloody hell, why couldn't the old man just go?

"You know what?" snapped Harry before Dumbledore had even opened his mouth to start formulating a response. "I really don't have time to sit around here arguing with you, you can stand around here all day for all I care." With that, Harry turned around and strode back towards his house. He hadn't even reached the front door however when he felt his wards being attacked again.

"God damn it," he screamed before running back to his front gates and grabbing a surprised Dumbledore. He took a hold of the man's robes, pressed what could have been a pocket watch or a brooch of some sort against his forehead and then dragged him towards the house.

"Bugger it," he cried. "I really don't want to have your death on my conscience so...damn...frak it...I'm giving you guest access. As long as you don't do any active magic you can come into the house." He hustled Dumbledore inside the house and forced him into a chair in his living room.

"Sit there, and don't bloody move," he shouted. "I've set the wards so that you can't leave this room. Whatever you do don't do any magic. None, whatsoever. Even a Lumos charm will see you physically ejected outside the house by the wards and let me tell you that is really not a comfortable experience. At your age, you'll be lucky if it doesn't kill you. At the bare minimum you'll break your bloody hips."

Dumbledore stared at Harry, in all his vast experience he had never heard of a ward of that type. Could Harry be bluffing? Well, there was one way to find out, but he really could not take that chance. Even if the wards did not work as advertised, at this point he could not afford to antagonise Harry.

He shouted out to Harry, who had been about to leave the room. "Wait, Harry, please. It is extremely important that you hear me out."

Harry turned around and stared at him, an impatient look upon his face.

"Harry, my...well, you're hardly a boy any more but still...I implore you. I know what you are most likely heading off to do but..."

"Really, and what do you think I am about to do?" snapped Harry, interrupting Dumbledore.

"The Fidelius charm of course. From your reaction on seeing me I take it that the charm was not broken by design. Which means that you intend to cast it again, correct? Once you do that I will no doubt forget everything I know about you. Trust me, you do not want that to happen," claimed Dumbledore.

"Why not?" asked Harry, he was more than a little put out that Dumbledore had guessed what he was planning.

"I have something that I have to tell you. Information that it is absolutely vital for you to know. Facts that I should have informed you off years ago. Please...Harry, promise me that you will not send me away without listening to me. Please, I beg you. If you ever held even the slightest bit of regard for me...Promise me, Harry," begged Dumbledore.

"I...I don't really think...after all these years...nothing you could possibly say..." said Harry.

"Please, it is of vital importance that you be informed of your destiny..." said Dumbledore.

"My destiny? I don't suppose you could tell me in say the next five minutes?" asked Harry.

Dumbledore looked a little flabbergasted at the thought of condensing everything he had to say within five minutes. How exactly would that conversation go? He could only imagine. Harry relented a bit at the look on Dumbledore's face. Perhaps it would not be the worst thing in the world if Dumbledore knew who he was. After all, as long as he wasn't the secret keeper it wasn't as if he could go around telling anybody else who Harry really was.

"Fine, you're right," he said. "I am, in fact, going to recast the Fidelius. After I'm done with that, I will come back and talk to you for a while. In the meantime, I suggest you wait over here in the living room."

Harry turned around and sped out of the room, slamming the door shut behind himself. Dumbledore sank down into the couch and buried his head in his hands. Oh dear, oh dear, he thought. He might forget why he had come there once Harry cast the charm. Chances were, he might just wander off and then he would never find Harry again. A note, that's what he needed. He would write a note to himself.

He looked around the room and found it depressingly modern. He himself preferred furniture that looked a bit lived in. Something with a few years, preferably decades, behind it. In any case, the important point was that there wasn't a single quill or a piece of parchment in sight.

He fumbled within his robes. Surely, he had something...aah, what luck, he was in fact carrying a self-inking quill. Now if only he could find some parchment but alas, that was not to be.

He looked around morosely. No parchment, whatever was he going to do. He started another search of the many pockets in his voluminous robes but all he could come up with was a handkerchief. It would have to do. It was hard for him to constantly stop himself from reaching for his wand. Usually, it would take him hardly a second to conjure up something simple like parchment and a quill. Being utterly unable to do magic left him feeling terribly out of sorts.

He stared off into the distance before beginning to scribble upon his handkerchief. The ink blotted terribly but it would have to do. He could not write anything directly related to Harry. That information would be unreadable as soon as the Fidelius was cast. However, a note to himself, admonishing himself not to leave the house under any circumstances. Not until he had spoken to the inhabitant about the Boy-Who-Lived. A few more dire warnings about the absolute importance of not leaving until he had finished the task. Not to do any magic, etcetera etcetera. Yes, that should be enough.

Then there was nothing left to do but wait. The house was absolutely still and the waiting was intolerable. He felt an almost unbearable tension to be doing something. He did not care what. Anything. He paced around the room. He tried all the doors leading out of it. They were all locked and he could almost feel the thrum of magic and power that reinforced them. Whoever had warded the house had not stopped at the exterior walls. It was clear that even within the house there were multiple defences just waiting to be triggered.

Even the ticking of a clock seemed to boom loudly in the unbearable quiet. How much longer would it take he wondered. Surely, Harry must be done by now. It should not be taking him so long to cast a Fidelius. But, on the other hand, he realised that Harry had probably had to go and fetch his new secret keeper. Most likely he would be using some friend of his.

When would Harry return? He hoped that Harry...He blinked slowly. What had he been thinking about? He stared around the room in confusion. Why had he come to this...this obviously muggle house? Why was he clutching an ink-stained handkerchief? Oh, there was writing on it. A strangely cryptic note written in his own handwriting exhorting him not to leave the house along with some warnings and an order to speak to whoever lived there and not to leave until they told him who they were.

He frowned. Why had he written such a note to himself?

Why?

Just then the door opened and a dark haired stranger entered. Dumbledore stared at the young man. Was this the person who was supposed to give him the answers he had been searching for?

He was a reasonably unremarkable person. Messy dark hair and green eyes. He stood there fidgeting with a pencil in his hand.

The young man pulled up a chair, sat down and for one long moment he and Albus Dumbledore stared at each other.

Dumbledore did not quite know how to start. What was he supposed to say?

"Err," he started, before coughing nervously. The young man seemed oddly amused at his discomfort.

"Would you mind telling me who you are?" he asked.

"Would I mind? No, not particularly," said the young man with a bit of a smirk. For some reason he looked exceptionally pleased with himself at that moment.

Dumbledore found that to be exceptionally annoying. Here he was trying to desperately figure out why he was where he was and this...this young whippersnapper, this...this...boy was playing word games with him.

"Well?" he snapped with the glare he used to reserve solely for the most appalling of his students.

"Well, what?" asked the boy with a gormless grin.

"Who are you?" asked Dumbledore through gritted teeth.

The boy shrugged. "Does it really make any difference? Who is anyone, really? I can give you my name, but what would that tell you? Could you tell me who you are?"

"I am Albus Dumbledore," stated Dumbledore. He was about to add a list of his titles, well, his former titles, when he was interrupted by the boy.

"That's not what I meant," said the boy. "Albus Dumbledore is just your name, your identity if you will. But do you really know who you are? Does anyone?"

Dumbledore stared at the boy in sheer exasperated disbelief. What on earth was he nattering on about? He knew very well who he was, thank you very much. He groaned, yes it was going to be a long exasperating day.

**~oo00oo~**

Luna sat back in bed and giggled her head off. The mirror on the wall in front of her was displaying a view of the living room where Harry and Dumbledore were sitting, a view that could beat any high definition television in the market for picture quality and sound. She couldn't help but find Dumbledore's current facial expression to be absolutely sidesplittingly funny.

**~oo00oo~**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

* * *

Thankfully for Dumbledore's burgeoning blood pressure, Harry soon tired of playing with the man. Quite frankly, it felt way too much like bullying a helpless infant for him to be comfortable with it. There was also the fact that he was; after all, intensely curious to find out exactly why Dumbledore had come looking for him after all these years. Luna couldn't possibly be right. Well, she usually was, but this time he hoped that she had caught a hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Still, he wasn't just about to come out and let Dumbledore know who he was. No, this had to be handled most carefully.

"Well, Professor," he started saying, "when you arrived you told me that you had some information for the Boy-Who-Lived. Why don't you tell me what it is and I will make sure that he gets it."

Dumbledore shook his head in exasperation. "No, no," he cried. "That would not be at all possible. While it is vital that I speak to him, I must be made privy to the secret of his identity first. Unless, I am able to remember who he is, how will I be able to give him all the details?"

"And why should I do that?" asked Harry. "How do I know that this information you're hinting at will have any meaning whatsoever? For all I know you could be lying about that. Perhaps you are working with his enemies. Perhaps this is all a ploy to draw him out. Hmmm?"

Dumbledore glared at the young man. While he had lost a lot of respect over the last decade, it had still been years since anyone had dared to question him in this manner. He did not like it, no he did not.

"The information I have for him," he said slowly as he pondered if he was doing the right thing, "it has to do with the events leading up to the attack on him as a child. The reason behind why he became the Boy-Who-Lived. Some of this information is being obscured by the Fidelius Charm. I know that I possess this information but unless I am made privy to the secret I cannot remember all of it, much less tell it to you."

Harry stared at his former Headmaster. He had no doubt that Dumbledore would know why Voldemort had originally targeted his family. However, he asked himself whether that information could possibly have any relevance to him now. Yes, he was still intensely curious and desperately wanted that information but… was it worth letting Dumbledore into the secret of his identity? Perhaps he should just stun and obliviate the old man. It would be ridiculously easy to do despite the man's reputation of being a ridiculously powerful wizard. The man was still under his wards after all and with the way Harry had them set up Dumbledore would be absolutely unable to defend himself or even attack Harry in any way.

Still...Why had Voldemort attacked Harry when he was a baby? That was a question he had pondered ever since Hagrid had told him about the events of that long ago Halloween night. He stared into Dumbledore's eyes and attempted to enter his mind with legilimency. Unfortunately, he drew an absolute blank. Dumbledore's occlumency skills were far too good to be defeated by him. Perhaps he could just stun or incarcerate the old man and then interrogate him under veritaserum. Yeah right, he snorted to himself. Like he had any veritaserum. Unfortunately, he could not buy any, as the sale of it was currently illegal in the states. He could probably brew some, his potions skills had improved dramatically once he had found a teacher other than Snape, but the damn potion took a full lunar phase to mature. There was also the chance that Dumbledore would be able to resist it using occlumency.

"All right," he suddenly barked. He was feeling not a little bit angry at himself for biting at Dumbledore's bait. "I can let you in on the secret..."

"Excellent," exclaimed Dumbledore, losing the glare that he had wearing ever since Harry's failed legilimency attack. He started beaming away with his trademarked eye twinkle back in full force.

"But first," continued Harry, "we're going to write up a little contract. Magically enforced of course. I'm sure you're familiar with them."

"A contract..." questioned Dumbledore. "Why would we need a contract?"

"The Fidelius Charm only hides the identity of the Boy-Who-Lived. It's not going to be very helpful if you decide to let slip his location to someone. Why, the next thing you know is that Death Eaters will be attacking this street and killing everybody on it. They don't need to know which person living on that street is the Boy-Who-Lived if everyone is dead. Right?"

"I assure you that is highly unlikely to happen," said Dumbledore.

"And your assurances mean what to me exactly?" asked Harry. "As far as I'm concerned your assurances are worth less than a bucket of warm piss."

"Very well," stated Dumbledore stiffly. He was quite angry at the boy's crude vulgarity but unfortunately he could do nothing about it at the time. "Write your contract."

**~oo00oo~**

Luna was busy digging through boxes when Harry stormed into their bedroom. She had been watching Harry's conversation with Dumbledore but just like Harry, she too had found the entertainment factor of seeing Dumbledore brought down a few pegs swiftly decline after a few minutes. Now she was happily digging through the multitude of boxes that her father had left with her. After Luna had moved in with Harry, Xenophilius Lovegood had embraced a rather nomadic lifestyle. He'd sold his house, contracted out his printing needs and seemed happy never spending more than a few days in any one location. Which meant that Luna had ended up saddled with all of the years of research materials, books and esoteric tchotchkes that Xeno had collected. This of course came in handy when she needed to look up something that he had told her about years ago. Information that was bound to be somewhere in his files. Now if only she could find it.

She looked up as Harry entered the room — "Wasn't the quote 'a bucket of warm spit'?" she asked.

"Nah," he said. "John Nance Garner said piss. That was just the euphemism that people used to make it a bit more polite. It was either that or telling him that I trusted him as far as I could push him with the force of one of my farts." He sat down heavily on the bed. "What do you think?" he asked her.

"You could have been more polite. Not that it wasn't entertaining. I don't think Dumbledore is used to anyone being quite so rude to him," she said.

"Yes well, I wanted to see just how badly he wanted to find me and... it was kind of cathartic as well," said Harry.

"Cathartic? Why?" asked Luna.

Harry sighed deeply. "That would be a very long conversation, mostly dealing with my years at Hogwarts. Right now, I need to write up a quick contract and came up to find the contract paper."

He looked around the room, which looked remarkable messy. He and Dobby had unpacked nearly the entire contents of his old trusty backpack in their quest to find the books detailing the Fidelius Charm and they had not had the time to pack everything away yet. There were stacks of books, papers, miscellaneous pieces of equipment and clothes dispersed randomly amongst the piles and piles of loose golden galleons lying around haphazardly. He really should do something about that. Why hadn't he converted all those galleons to American dollars? Well, it wasn't as if he needed it and there was something to be said about keeping a large store of gold coins as part of his emergency escape kit.

He had to kick aside several stack of papers before he could open his chest of drawers. The contract paper, which he rarely used, was lying on the bottom of the lowest drawer. Hardly anybody used magically reinforcing contracts anymore but a while back, he had come across a client who insisted on one being drawn up before he would give Harry the job of warding his house. He wouldn't have bothered but this was one of the few clients who wanted to go all out on his wards. Jobs like that were quite rare and besides the contract had only covered stuff that he would have done anyway. Luckily, he still had some of the magically enchanted paper lying around. All he had to do was write out the terms, lay in the sealing enchantments and have Dumbledore sign it.

"Do you need help drafting the contract?" asked Luna.

"Don't think so," answered Harry. "It should be reasonably straightforward. My identity is covered by the Fidelius, so all it needs to cover is...He can't tell or give anyone any information about me or my location. If he has to come here again for any reason then he has to make absolutely certain that no one ever finds out about his visit and that he is not followed by anyone. He can't talk about me with anyone. Can't hmmm...What else does it need? Perhaps a line about him never lying to me. Never attempting to learn who my secret keeper is and if he does manage to find out, by accident or whatever then to never ever attempt to persuade or manipulate my secret keeper into telling the secret to anybody else." He stared at Luna for a moment, thinking hard. "And supposing something happens to me, then he has to make sure that my secret keeper is safe."

Luna frowned, "Cancel that last one," she ordered.

"Why?" asked Harry.

"In case something does happen to you...I really don't want Dumbledore trying to protect me. I'd rather he just keep as far away from me as possible."

"Yes, of course, you're absolutely right," said Harry, thinking of how Dumbledore had arranged to keep him safe after his parents were killed.

"Anyway, that should probably do it, I think. I'll just write it up and have Dumbles sign it," he said.

**~oo00oo~**

Harry walked back into the room where Dumbledore was waiting patiently and handed him the contract which he had hastily written up.

"Read that, after you sign it I can let you know where you can find your Boy-Who-Lived," he stated.

Dumbledore peered at the contract rapidly scanning it. "Most of this seems quite reasonable. However, I must be allowed to discuss the fact that I have found him with my allies. Finding the Boy-Who-Lived will provide an incredible boost of morale to those opposing Voldemort. I must be free to at least do that."

"No, I'm afraid it's an all or nothing situation. Either you sign that, or I shall obliviate you of the details of this meeting and send you on your way."

Dumbledore looked like he was about to argue but a single look at Harry's face was all it took to convince him that he was wasting his time.

"Very well," he stated as he pulled out a quill to sign the contract.

"Just a second," said Harry. "I still need to lay in the usual contract enchantments that will make it magically enforceable."

Harry started tapping the contract with the pencil that he had been holding the entire time and mumbling under his breath.

After a few minutes, he handed the contract over to Dumbledore and said — "There you go, you can sign it now."

Dumbledore stared at the young man. "How — How did you do that without a wand?" he asked. Contract enchantments were quite complex and even he, with all of his years of experience, would never attempt to perform them without a wand.

Harry looked surprised as if he had no idea what the man was talking about. Then he looked at the pencil he was holding and started to laugh.

"Oh man, you really don't get out much. Do you? My dear Professor, this IS a wand," he stated as he held his pencil in front of him. It looked like a perfectly ordinary muggle pencil, black with gold lettering on the side that marked it as an HB pencil. Obviously one that hadn't been used much as its tip was perfectly sharp and the length showed that it had never been sharpened. "The wizards over here in the States have always believed in blending in with the non-magical population. As such...well, why would you ever want to carry a wand that looks like a wand. Everyone here uses wands made to look like a pencil or a pen. Oh, you should have seen how much I was teased the first time I pulled out my old Ollivander wand at summer camp. All the other kids were asking me why I was carrying my grandfather's wand. Hell, for weeks that's what they called me — Grandad!"

With a start, Dumbledore realised that the young man had been holding the pencil the entire time they had been talking. He had been held at wandpoint and he had not even realised it.

"I don't like the ones that look like pens though. They coat those in something that makes them look and feel like a metal or plastic pen. The pencil ones feel much more natural, just like the wooden wands you're used to. This one is even made of holly, just like my old wand. You can even write with it in a pinch, but that's not really a good idea. Replacing the leads can be a bit of a pain."

Dumbledore sighed, perhaps he was getting too old. He rubbed his tired eyes and signed the contract.

"Excellent," said Harry as he put away the contract carefully. "Now, then I guess I have to do my part."

He pulled out a slip of paper and paused. He seemed incredibly reluctant for a moment then he handed the paper over to Dumbledore with a sigh.

Dumbledore looked at the paper and the biggest smile suddenly blossomed on his face.

"Harry, my dear boy. You have no idea how good it is to see you after all these years."

Harry plucked the paper out of Dumbledore's hand, carried it to his kitchen sink and set it on fire. He waited for the paper to completely burn then he picked up the remnants and crushed the black fragments between his fingers before turning on the water and washing the lot away.

"You had something to tell me I believe," he stated.

"Aah yes, of course I do," said Dumbledore a bit taken aback. He suddenly seemed a lot older and tired than he had looked just a moment ago.

Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long-fingered hands. Harry watched him, but this uncharacteristic sign of exhaustion, or sadness, or whatever it was from Dumbledore, did not soften him.

Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses.

"It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything. You may get angry after hearing some of the things that I tell you but… I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me — to do whatever you like — when I have finished. I will not stop you."

Harry stared at him for a moment, then flung himself back into the chair opposite Dumbledore and waited.

Dumbledore stared for a moment into the distance, then looked back at Harry and said, "Fifteen years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well — not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years."

He paused. Harry said nothing although his mind was whirling. Ten dark and... Dumbledore had known, he had bloody well known...

"You might ask — and with good reason — why it had to be so. Why could some wizarding family not have taken you in? Many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honoured and delighted to raise you as a son.

"My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but I realised. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters — and many of them are almost as terrible as he — were still at large, angry, desperate and violent. And I had to make my decision, too, with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone for ever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure, too, knowing him as I have done, that he would not rest until he killed you.

"I knew that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power.

"But I knew, too, where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated — to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that might still flow in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."

"She never loved me," said Harry at once. "She never gave a damn —"

"But she took you," Dumbledore cut across him. "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you."

"I still don't —"

"While you could still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you could not be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lived on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You needed to return there only once a year, but as long as you called it home, whilst you were there he could not hurt you. Your aunt knew this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knew that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for all those years."

"Fifteen years ago, then," continued Dumbledore, "you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.

"And then . . . well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you and sooner — much sooner — than I had anticipated, you found yourself face to face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was . . . prouder of you than I can say.

"Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine," said Dumbledore. "An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort."

"I don't understand what you're saying," said Harry.

"Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?"

Harry nodded.

"Ought I to have told you then?"

Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing.

"You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No . . . perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.

"I should have recognised the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognised that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day . . . you were too young, much too young.

"And so we entered your second year at Hogwarts. And once again you met challenges even grown wizards have never faced; once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark on you. We discussed your scar, oh yes . . . we came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?

"Well, it seemed to me that twelve was, after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, to have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in myself to spoil that night of triumph . . .

"Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."

"I don't —"

"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.

"Is there a defence? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have — and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined — not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.

"We entered your third year. I watched from afar as you struggled to repel Dementors, as you found Sirius, learned what he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when you had triumphantly snatched your godfather from the jaws of the Ministry? But now, at the age of thirteen, my excuses were running out. Young you might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Harry. I knew the time must come soon . . .

"But you came out of the maze in your fourth, having watched Cedric Diggory die, having escaped death so narrowly yourself . . . and I did not tell you, though I knew, now Voldemort had returned, I must do it soon. Then you disappeared and I had lost my chance. I have looked for you for many years and... And now, tonight, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that I should have placed the burden upon you before this. My only defence is this: I had watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school and I could not bring myself to add another — the greatest one of all."

Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak.

"I still don't understand."

"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him in the cemetery, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he had been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you."

"In fact, a short time after your disappearance, he broke into the Department of Mysteries. He was seeking the prophecy, labelled with his and your name, but ran afoul of the defences which reacted rather...vigorously. Surprisingly so. The prophecy was smashed during the chaos but what was smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly."

"Who heard it?" asked Harry, though he thought he knew the answer already.

"I did," said Dumbledore. "On a cold, wet night twenty-six years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave."

Dumbledore got to his feet and fumbled in his pockets for a bit. He pulled out a small black box which he placed on the floor. "I almost forgot this in my haste to reach you. Luckily, I remembered in time to carry it with me. As I am still not allowed to do magic within your house would you kindly place your wand upon this and perform a standard shrinking reversal spell," he said.

Harry did so and the box expanded into a fine black trunk, Dumbledore bent down, opened the lid and took from inside it a shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges. Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple, he paused. "This is not really a form of active magic. Will it trigger your wards if I remove a memory?" he asked.

Harry waved his wand and cast a few spells. "Now it won't," he said. "I've set the wards to allow you to cast just one spell. You can go ahead and do it now"

Dumbledore placed his wand to his temple again. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand and deposited them into the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sybill Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before:

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . . and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . . . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies . . ."_

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

The silence was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Harry made a sound.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. "It . . . did that mean . . . what did that mean?"

"It meant," said Dumbledore, "that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly twenty-six years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times."

"It means — me?" asked Harry.

Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.

"The odd thing, Harry," he said softly, "is that it may not have meant you at all. Sybill's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom."

"Then — it might not be me?" said Harry.

"I am afraid," said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, "that there is no doubt that it is you."

"But you said — Neville was born at the end of July, too — and his mum and dad —"

"You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who could vanquish Voldemort . . . Voldemort himself would mark him as his equal. And so he did, Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse."

"But he might have chosen wrong!" said Harry. "He might have marked the wrong person!"

"He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore. "And notice this, Harry: he chose, not the pure-blood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing) but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but multiple times so far — something that few other wizards have ever achieved."

"Why did he do it, then?" said Harry. "Why did he try and kill me as a baby? He should have waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then — "

"That might, indeed, have been the more practical course," said Dumbledore, "except that Voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog's Head inn, which Sybill chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. It is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sybill Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. My — our — one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building."

"So he only heard — ?"

"He heard only the beginning, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you, and marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait, to learn more. He did not know that you would have power the Dark Lord knows not — "

"But I don't!" said Harry, in a voice that was oddly calm. "I haven't any powers he hasn't got"

"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries," interrupted Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. It was your heart. The love you held within it."

Harry closed his eyes. He asked, without caring much about the answer, "The end of the prophecy . . . it was something about . . . neither can live . . ."

"...while the other survives,"said Dumbledore.

"So," said Harry, "according to you, does that mean that . . . that one of us has got to kill the other one . . . in the end?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore.

For a long time, neither of them spoke, then Harry suddenly exploded.

Harry stared at Dumbledore in disbelief. "That's it?" he asked in tones of utter incredulity. "That's all you've got? The reason that Voldemort's been trying to kill me for all these years. A few lines of gibberish from a drunk fraud? Just the fact that she gave it during a bloody job interview -— That alone should have been a huge red flag for you."

"Harry, I assure you that the prophecy is a true prophecy. I scanned Professor Trelawney's mind right after she said it. She had absolutely no recollection of saying those words. That combined with the way she said it — It had all the hallmarks of a true prophecy. It would have been utterly impossible for anyone, let alone her, to fake it."

"Really?" asked Harry. "How much are you willing to bet on that? Because I'm willing to bet you any amount you care to wager that I can fake a prophecy just as well as that."

"My dear boy, I assure you that there is no way..."

"Oh stow it," snapped Harry as he whipped out his wand and hit Dumbledore with a charm.

A few minutes later, Dumbledore suddenly snapped to attention. He felt like he had just fallen asleep for a moment.

"What just happened?" he asked.

"Not much, just me proving a point. Now Professor, I'd appreciate it if you would kindly look at this device. It's called a camcorder, consider it the muggle version of a Pensieve, and if you would just look at the screen right there you might see something that would interest you."

Harry handed the camcorder to Dumbledore and pressed the play button. Dumbledore nearly dropped the tiny little device when it started playing. He was astonished to see himself on the tiny screen. It showed him sitting at the same table where he was currently still seated, speaking words which he had absolutely no recollection of saying. There he was saying something in exactly the same harsh tones that Trelawney's prophecy had been in.

_"The Great Bumblebee shall discover"_

_"on the day that east meets west"_

_"and the sun cleaveth the moon"_

_"that he is not as smart as he thinks he is"_

"How? How is this possible?" he sputtered.

"It's was ridiculously easy," said Harry. "All, I really needed was a compulsion charm to read out what I had written on this paper here, just a bit of rubbish that I wrote. Tack on a voice changing charm to give you that lovely harsh tone and top it off with a short term obliviate so that a Legilimens will see that you have no memory of saying it. Crudely done, but even with that, I think I've managed to recreate the effects of Trelawney's prophecy. Plus, you must know it's ridiculously easy to pre-cast a spell and add a trigger to it. All Trelawney had to do was get that cast on her anytime before her interview with you, set it to go off when she says a particular word and you know what she got?"

"What?" asked Dumbledore, despite himself.

"Employment! A wonderful sinecure. An instant job, probably for the rest of her life. One where she barely has to do any work. Just light the incense and scare a few teenagers with ridiculous prophecies of their death a few times a week. Rather brilliant of her, I must say."

"Harry, you're forgetting that part of the prophecy has already come true. You were clearly marked. The scar on your head was caused by Voldemort."

"Oh please. Don't tell me you've never heard about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hell, take any murderous psychopath and tell him that there's only one person in the world that can defeat him and if he believes you, then sooner or later he's going to go and attack that person. At least one of them is guaranteed to die, the survivor is more than likely to have a few scars, and then you can happily claim that your prophecy was true. It's utter bullshit as far as I'm concerned," stated Harry.

"There was a time when I would have agreed with you Harry," said Dumbledore. "Unfortunately, over the years I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the prophecy holds true. Voldemort has never even come close to being defeated by anyone else. Only you have ever been able to defeat him."

Harry was about to interrupt when Dumbledore held up his hand. "Hear me out, please," he asked. "I'm not just talking about the night he killed your parents. Don't forget that you also managed to thwart his plans of stealing the Philosopher's stone. You were the one who defeated his shade and killed the basilisk that was terrorising Hogwarts. You were the one, Harry, that managed to escape him after he kidnapped you during the Triwizard Tournament. There you were, injured, bleeding, not an ally in sight. What did you do? Not only did you manage to duel him to a standstill, you also managed to escape. And if that wasn't enough you managed to retrieve poor Cedric's body as well. No other wizard in the world, not even me, can claim to have done as much against Voldemort as you. You are the one Harry. You are the only one who can defeat Lord Voldemort."

Harry just stared at Dumbledore for a long moment and then he did something that surprised Dumbledore. It was the very last thing that Dumbledore expected him to do.

Harry Potter began to laugh.

**~oo00oo~**

**A/N: This chapter contained edited excerpts from JKR's Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix.**

**Please Review.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

Dumbledore was staring at the boy who he had sought for years. Harry Potter was currently sitting across a table from him and was laughing his head off. Every once in a while he would stop laughing take a look at Dumbledore's face and would start laughing again. Needless to say Dumbledore was a bit worried. Poor Harry had not taken the news of his destiny well. No doubt, the boy had cracked under the strain caused by Dumbledore's revelations.

Unfortunately, there was not much he could do. The restrictions that Harry had placed on him meant that if he cast as much as a calming charm on Harry then the wards would immediately expel him from the house. He could do nothing but stare at Harry's laughing face and wait for him to stop.

It probably took only a few minutes for Harry to stop laughing but it felt like forever to Dumbledore. Eventually though Harry's laughter finally petered off and he straightened up, wiping tears from his face.

"Sorry, sorry, I just couldn't help it," said the boy as he let out a few more chuckles.

"Are you okay?" asked Dumbledore worriedly. "Perhaps a glass of water...?"

"No, no, I'm fine," said Harry. "I just had a funny thought..."

"What did you find so funny Harry? After all, we were discussing an extremely serious topic."

Harry sobered up a bit and stared at Dumbledore. "Yes, yes we were and the thing is...Well, most of what you told me got me really angry. You have no idea how many times you were close to getting hexed. Just that remark about the ten dark and difficult years..."

Harry stopped and shook his head. He held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger held just millimetres apart. "I was this close to tossing you out that window right there when you said that."

Dumbledore was bewildered. "Why did that upset you so much Harry? You were too young to remember living in the magical world. You could not have missed what you did not remember so... I mean, even now you choose to live in the muggle world. Surely it could not be as bad as I imagine."

Harry looked at Dumbledore as if he was crazy. "Is that what you meant by dark and terrible? Living in the muggle world?"

"Why yes. Of course," said Dumbledore. "Living without the warmth and life of magic surrounding you, in the cold sterile muggle world. I know it must have been absolutely terrible but..."

"Are you bloody crazy..." exploded Harry. "I wasn't talking about living without magic. I was talking about the bloody Dursleys. You...you went on about how closely you watched me...You knew that my aunt didn't want me. Surely you knew about how they treated me?"

"When I said I watched you closely, I was talking about your years at Hogwarts. Before that...I did have someone watching you but they assured me that you were healthy and relatively happy."

"Really?" asked Harry. "Who exactly was this delusional person?"

"An acquaintance of mine who lived quite close to Privet Drive. A squib by the name of Mrs Figg, she assured me..."

"THE CRAZY OLD CAT LADY?" shouted Harry. "That's who you relied upon to make sure I was well taken care off. No bloody wonder! What is with you and the incompetents you seem to rely on for everything?"

Dumbledore started to say something but before he could get more than a couple of words out he was interrupted by Harry.

"Let me tell you something about the Dursleys," said Harry. "Have you ever been inside their house? Do you know how many bedrooms they had?"

"Well, the last time I was there was the night you disappeared, that was ten years ago, so I don't recall the exact number but it seemed to be a reasonably large house..."

"They had four. Four bedrooms! One for Petunia and Vernon, one Guest bedroom and two...two bedrooms for Dudley. So where do you suppose they made me sleep? Which was my room?"

Dumbledore was once again stricken dumb. He had no idea what Harry was talking about. If the Dursley family had lived in a house with four bedrooms why would they have not given one to Harry? Where could Harry have slept? Aah but of course...

"Then I assume they made you and your cousin share a room. Surely this was not such a great hardship..."

"WRONG!" yelled Harry. "Don't you ever listen. I already told you Dudley had two bedrooms. Do you know where they made me sleep? Do you? In the cupboard under the frigging stairs. That's where."

"What? A cupboard? But...But...Harry I assure you I had no idea..."

"Stop bloody lying to me... .My Hogwarts letter was even addressed to the 'The Cupboard under the stairs'. Don't you dare sit there and claim that you never knew anything about it."

Dumbledore sat there, absolutely stunned by Harry's tirade and the knowledge that the Dursley family had treated Harry so poorly. He tried to explain himself - "Harry, the Hogwart's letters are not addressed in the normal sense. Much like Owl post, they do not need an actual street address. There is an ancient enchantment that sends them out directly to all registered students. It is this enchantment that displays the address to the recipients. It simply displays what the recipient thinks of as their address or current location. It does tend to be rather oddly precise."

Harry stared at Dumbledore. Talking about his time with the Dursley family was always difficult and never failed to anger him.

"Fine," he barked. "I could almost believe that. However, that still doesn't excuse you. Why on earth did you never check up on me yourself? And don't give me any bullshit about you being a busy man. Wizarding travel is almost instantaneous. You could have apparated or taken a portkey and been there in seconds. How long would it have taken you to check up on me? Five minutes, ten. I refuse to believe that you never had a free ten minutes over the entire ten years I lived with them."

"I thought it best not to have too much contact with you," explained Dumbledore. "As long as you had to stay in the muggle world, I assumed it would be confusing for you if you had any contact at all with the magical world. I was also afraid that someone might wonder why I was visiting a muggle area and deduce your location. I thought it would be safer for you if I stayed away. Also, as I said earlier, I had Mrs Figg sending me regular reports. If she had even hinted at you not being treated properly... I see now that it was a mistake and all I can do is beg your forgiveness."

Harry was really not in any sort of mood to listen to Dumbledore's excuses. In his mind, at that moment, Dumbledore was as culpable as the Dursleys for his miserable childhood.

"Then the blood wards. That nearly saw you defenestrated as well. When you told me you relied on wards fuelled by my mother's sacrifice," said Harry shaking his head as if he could not believe the Headmaster's stupidity.

"Harry, those wards kept you safe for many years, I assure you..."

"Oh please, the problem with your story is that I actually know a little bit about warding. Here in the States warding is a very dynamic field. Ward crackers and hackers are constantly working on new methods of breaking into wards. Warders are constantly improving their warding scheme to stay one-step ahead of the crackers. Why, not six months ago I had to replace my anti-portkey wards after a ward hacking group demonstrated a new way to break through them at MageCon."

"I fail to see..."

"Testing Dumbledore, testing. An effective warding scheme is one that has been tested to hell and back and been proven to last over years. Now according to you, your blood wards were based around my mother sacrificing herself in an attempt to save me. Correct? Now, I know that there was some sort of protection around me, Quirrell burning up when he tried to touch me proved that. But blood wards based around that? The problem is that you don't really hear about that kind of protection much. You'd think there'd be dozens of cases of mothers shielding their children from harm. Especially during a time of war. Yet I've never heard of anybody else having that type of protection."

"I believe this was due to the fact that you were the target and not your mother. If your mother had not come in Voldemort's way she would likely have lived. This would not have been the case in a random attack in which the mother would likely have been a target as well," explained Dumbledore patiently.

Harry waved away Dumbledore's explanation. "No," he said. "Like I said, whatever the reason, I know that I had some sort of protection around me. No, my problem with the situation is the rarity of that protection. Obviously, this is not a situation that happens everyday. So, when you set up a ward based on something like that - How did you know it would work? You would not have come across such a situation before so this had to be the first time you set up a ward of that type. Or was it? Do you make it a regular habit of going around looking for children whose mothers were killed in precisely that way? I would think it would be pretty hard to find people who precisely meet those requirements. Well, not unless you're the type to go around arranging the murder of young mothers. Are you that type of person? How many mothers have you had murdered?"

"HOW DARE YOU?" shouted Dumbledore, absolutely incensed at the allegation.

"HOW DARE I? You sir are the one who tossed up a totally unproven, untested ward around Privet Drive. There is absolutely no way you could have known that your so called Ancient Magic Blood Wards would have had any effect whatsoever."

"You are here, aren't you," snapped Dumbledore. "That alone proves that those wards were effective."

"No, all it proves is that no one ever tried to kill me while I was at Privet drive. Perhaps I was just lucky that no Death Eater ever came across me while I was staying at the Dursleys. No, as far as I can tell there was absolutely no good reason for me to stay at the Dursley house, none whatsoever. Hell, they didn't even have any way of contacting you if something happened. What could they have possibly done against any wizard who wished to do me harm?"

"The thing that really gets me is how easy it would have been to get Petunia and Vernon to treat me a little better. And I'm not talking about anything like a compulsion or Imperious charm to treat me better. After all, it only took one letter addressed to 'the cupboard under the stairs' for them to get terrified that someone would find out about how they had been treating me. One letter and I was moved into Dudley's crappy second bedroom. One letter, that's all it took. All you had to do was let them know that there was someone out there who was going to be checking up on me. Someone who cared to see that I was treated well and not made to do all the cooking and cleaning while my pig of a cousin lolled around. Perhaps it would have even stopped them from locking me in that damn cupboard after every little bit of accidental magic, and the endless verbal abuse, being called a freak and a burden. All you had to do was let them know that there was someone who would hold them accountable for their treatment of me. That's all, and you couldn't even be bothered to do that," sneered Harry.

"Harry, I know I failed you but..."

"No, that's not all you did. Perhaps, I should explain why I was laughing," said Harry. "You see Dumbledore, here I was listening to you, explaining about how much you loved me and all the other bullshit you were spewing. I was getting angrier and angrier and I was actually fantasising about wreaking a painful revenge upon you when a thought suddenly popped into my mind..." He stopped and looked at Dumbledore expectantly.

"What thought was that Harry," asked Dumbledore knowing that Harry was waiting for him to ask.

"I suddenly thought - What if the prophecy was true? Now, there is just so much wrong with that prophecy that I could probably spend hours picking holes in it. Everything from how my parents defied Voldemort a lot more than three times..."

Dumbledore interrupted Harry "No Harry, I am absolutely certain that your parents fought Voldemort only on three occasions. Each time barely escaping with their lives"

Harry gave Dumbledore a withering look - "You don't have to face someone in battle in order to defy them. My father was a pureblood who married a muggleborn. Every day he remained married to her was a day in which he defied Voldemort and everything Voldemort stood for. For that matter every single day my mother lived as a witch, every single spell she cast was in direct defiance to Voldemort and his views on blood purity. I would say that counts as a lot more than three times. But like I was saying - everything from that to that rubbish phrase 'neither can live while the other survives' - I mean, really, what sense does that make? I'm living and so is he. I could go on and on but it suddenly occurred to me - What if? What if the prophecy is true and I am really the only one that can defeat Voldemort? That's when I realised; I don't have to do anything to you. Your own actions have already condemned you and wreaked a far better revenge than I could ever do. That's what I found so funny and that's why I was laughing."

Harry sat back and grinned in satisfaction at the look on Dumbledore's face.

"You see professor, thanks to you I grew up in the muggle world. Thanks to you, I only lived in the British Magical world for four years. Most of that time was spent at your school where let's face it - in between the constant assassination attempts, teachers like Snape, students like Malfoy, other students accusing me of being a dark lord who makes it a habit of going around petrifying muggleborns to half the school proudly wearing badges that showed exactly what they thought of me... Let's just say I don't have the fondest memories of Hogwarts or its students. As far as actual magical society, well, I never really experienced that apart from the few weeks when I stayed at the Leaky Cauldron. I have absolutely no ties of any sort to magical Britain."

"So, thanks to you and the Dursleys, I have no fond memories of muggle Britain and I barely even qualified as a tourist in Magical Britain. Now, what makes you think I have any intention or reason to fight Voldemort? As far as I'm concerned, he's welcome to Britain. May he choke on it."

Dumbledore was stunned. His plans had just crumbled to dust and blown away in the wind. He would never have believed in a million years that Harry Potter would refuse to do his duty. Not him, not Harry. How could he have been so wrong? How could he persuade Harry to fight Voldemort? How?

"Harry, I...I refuse to believe that you truly believe that. You, the boy who was willing to face a basilisk to save someone he barely knew. No, there is no way you would condemn so many innocents to suffer under Voldemort's reign."

Harry gave Dumbledore a puzzled look. "What innocents are you talking about? Even though I no longer live there, it's not as if I've totally ignored the events that have happened in Britain. I know that most if not all of the people that would have suffered under Voldemort - the muggle borns and the half bloods, left Britain years ago. Hell, anyone with half a brain left Britain and the rest...well the rest made their choice. They can live with it."

"But Harry, you must see..."

"Professor, even if I had stayed in Britain, I sincerely doubt that I would have bothered to fight Voldemort. Well, I might have done it just for a desire for revenge...to get justice for my parents if nothing else..."

"Yes...yes...your parents," said Dumbledore, eagerly snapping at that point. "Would they not want you to fight Voldemort, Harry? They were among his most adamant opponents and..."

"And they died," interrupted Harry. "Frankly, I don't think they would have too much of a problem with my actions. I like to think my parents would have been more concerned with the fact that I'm leading a happy and healthy life as compared to embarking on a pointless and dangerous quest for revenge."

Harry smiled ruefully. "You know professor; it took a lot of therapy for me to believe that way about revenge and Voldemort. My therapist, who I had to tell that my parents were murdered during a robbery, was especially fond of the saying - '_When you first seek revenge - Dig two graves_'. Have you ever heard that one?"

"Yes, but...therapy? Really?" said Dumbledore looking extremely puzzled.

"There is another one that I prefer - '_If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by_'."

"I'm not quite sure...," said a confused Dumbledore.

"Voldemort is an insane dark lord. Sooner or later he will self-destruct. Look at the state of magical Britain today - the economy is still in a shambles as far as I know. How much longer will his followers put up with him? Eventually, their desire for a better life will overcome their fear of Voldemort. Then they will act and I have no doubt that either they or Voldemort will perish..."

"No Harry, I'm afraid not. Once again, you are forgetting the prophecy. Without you it is impossible to defeat Voldemort."

"Aah well, then the world will lose a few inbred pureblood bigots. Not such a great loss," stated Harry callously.

"Harry, I implore you to think about the people of Britain," begged Dumbledore. "Think about what will happen once Voldemort has built up an army strong enough to invade Europe. I can tell you with absolute certainty that he has been striving to do just that. Sooner rather than later there will be war."

"You know what Professor, you're forgetting one little fact. I already saved the people of Britain once. What happened after Voldemort's defeat in '81? Are you forgetting that?" asked Harry.

"We had peace Harry. A peace that lasted more than a decade before his resurrection."

"Yes," said Harry with a sneer. "A peace in which you let Voldemort's followers, his death eaters, who were just as guilty as Voldemort, get away scot-free. How many of them managed to get away without even a slap on their wrists by pleading the Imperius Curse excuse and lining a few pockets?"

"A few of his followers did get away but..."

"Yes, a few," said Harry in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "Death Eaters roamed free and my innocent godfather was imprisoned and tortured in Azkaban and I was sent to the Dursleys. Yes, I must say that the wizards in Britain really know how to reward someone for saving them from someone like Voldemort."

Harry continued, not letting Dumbledore get in a word edgewise. "Have you ever thought about who was directly responsible for Voldemort's resurrection? Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Junior. Do you realise that Voldemort might never have been resurrected at all if you, Albus Dumbledore had simply done your job? With your position and influence within the Wizengamot you should have insured that Sirius had a fair trial. If you had done that, Pettigrew might have been captured. If, with your power, influence and position you had insured that Azkaban was secure then Crouch might never have been able to break his son out of there. Who would have resurrected Voldemort then? And even if they had, if you had done your job and ensured that every single Death Eater was punished to the full extent of the law then who would have turned up at his resurrection party? No one. Instead Voldemort was resurrected into a world where you had allowed his former followers like Lucius Malfoy to gain an incredible amount of power and influence. Power and influence that they immediately put to work towards Voldemort's goals. And now, now, you come to me to clean up your messes. No, I don't think so."

"Besides, it's not really about saving the people. Say I do kill Voldemort, what would happen? His government would probably be replaced by one very similar to what I found when I first rejoined the magical world. The wizarding world I re-entered when I was eleven was not such a great place. In my second year, I saw Hagrid sent to Azkaban so that the Ministry could be seen to be doing something. In my third, I learnt that my godfather had been imprisoned unfairly. In my fourth, I saw the Minister order the Dementors to kiss Barty Crouch Jr. That, no matter how you slice it - was a summary execution. Sirius's kiss on sight order, after he escaped, was another example of exactly that. Summary executions are the stuff of dictatorships and nightmares. They are not something one expects to see in a modern, civilised, democratic nation."

"They say a society can be judged by how it treats its prisoners. Well, Britain's magical society treats its prisoners exceptionally well. Torture by way of exposure to dementors? Tsk, tsk. Treatment that has been known to drive prisoners insane. Well, perhaps I would not mind so much if I knew they were all Death Eaters. However, I know two people who were sent there unjustly without even the semblance of a trial. Based on that, I would not be surprised to learn that Azkaban was filled with hundred of innocents."

Dumbledore was stunned into near incoherence. "Harry, you must know that I have never condoned the presence of Dementors but...Why do you say that there might have been hundred of innocents in Azkaban?"

"Are you familiar with the concept of representative sampling? One takes the characteristics of a small subset of the population and from that uses them to infer knowledge about the population as a whole. Now, I did not have much exposure to the Magical World outside of Hogwarts. So let's take the adults I did know as a sample. Even if I count mere acquaintances like Florean Fortescue and Tom at the Leaky Cauldron, I doubt I knew more than twenty adults in magical Britain. Out of those twenty adults, two of them were imprisoned unjustly without a trial. That's ten percent of the people I knew who were tortured even though they were innocent. A ridiculously high percentage, wouldn't you agree?"

"By that logic most of the wizards in England would be teachers in a school," said Dumbledore.

Harry shook his head again quite unwilling to listen to anything that Dumbledore had to say at this point - "No Professor, I'm afraid that you're wasting your time. I refuse to fight for a magical society as corrupt and worthless as that. No, I will not."

**~oo00oo~**

If there ever was a time when getting ridiculously drunk was totally and absolutely justified, this was it, thought Dumbledore. After leaving Harry's house he had apparated around until he found a bar and now he was trying his best to get ridiculously plastered.

There was no fire whiskey, which was unfortunate but he supposed that the muggle stuff would do as well. He just had to drink more of it to compensate. He gulped down his drink, single malt taken neat, and ordered another.

He burrowed his spinning head into his hands as he waited for his next drink. The problem was that he had no rebuttal to many of Harry's complaints. Yes, he was only too aware that he could have done more. He could have pushed for stiffer sentences and stringent verification of those Imperius curse claims. He should have investigated Black's case more thoroughly. He should have insured that Harry had a happy childhood. He should have insured that the boy had more ties to the magical world. He should have... he should have... His failures and mistakes swam around and around in his head.

The bartender was giving him the eye as he downed yet another drink and signalled for a refill. Stupid fellow should be used to people drinking heavily. Was this a bar or a teashop? No, he would not let that bother him. He was going to sit here and drink until he passed out or a solution presented itself.

He could not bear the thought of returning to Hogwarts and confessing his failure to the few followers and allies he had left. Not that the boy had left him much leeway to do that. He could not even discuss the boy with anyone thanks to that ridiculous contract Harry had forced him to sign.

Bloody bartender was looking at him again and telling him to slow down... Buddy... he called him buddy! Why, the sheer cheek of the man. Here's a confundus charm, now keep serving me you bloody idiot. Aah yes, there it was. Ridiculous of the man, as if he was going to get drunk on these weak muggle drinks. Now fire whiskey there was a drink that...what was he thinking...yes, how to convince Harry and that bloody contract...can't talk about him, have to make sure that he takes precautions that no Death Eaters can follow him... wait a minute...

Ok... he could not talk about Harry... could not lead Death Eaters to his house... but had the boy put in anything about getting a friend to accompany him to his house... no he hadn't, which meant that... yes... yes... there was a way.

Harry was not a hopeless case, he thought. The boy had talked a good line about not wanting revenge but at the same time he had spoken of tossing Dumbledore through a window. Clearly the boy was not above thoughts of revenge no matter what he said. The problem was that the boy was being unreasonably antagonistic towards Dumbledore.

All he had to do, thought Dumbledore was find someone else that might help convince Harry. People like the Weasley family. They had all moved to Romania shortly before Voldemort took over the Ministry. Yes, he could grab Ron Weasley and have him tell Harry how miserable he was living away from England...but then...oh dear, Molly Weasley might come to know of it and she had really not left him on the best of terms. He shuddered as he remembered her last howler, which she had sent after his little faux pas with Ron Weasley. Looking back... yes that had probably not been very wise. Not Ron, then. Best to not risk another Howler.

Another drink was required.

Who else? Well, the boy had mentioned Sirius Black. Despite their difficult past Sirius had always been loyal. He could not even blame him for disappearing the way he had. After his godson had vanished, Sirius too had nothing to keep him in England. Yes, he would fetch Sirius and make him convince the boy. Hmmm, would that work? Sirius should not be that difficult to find, the last he heard the boy, well man he supposed, was living in Brazil. The only problem would be getting Sirius to accompany him without him being able to tell the man why he needed him. Well, if there was one thing he was good at, it was convincing people. Most people anyway, he amended as he recalled his conversation with Harry, which made him order and down yet another drink.

Still, Sirius might not be enough; the man had not really spent much time with Harry. He needed someone who knew Harry well, someone like... yes, someone like Hermione Granger... Perfect, yes. The poor girl had been forced to live in a former penal colony. Yes, she would do perfectly to show Harry how people he knew were suffering because he would not do his duty.

He lurched unsteadily to his feet and weaved his way to the door where he disappeared in a brief flash of Phoenix flame not really caring if anyone was around to see.

**~oo00oo~**


End file.
